


Black Wave / Bad Vibrations

by manabombs



Category: Angel: the Series, Black Sails, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Harlots (TV)
Genre: Bad Jokes, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dubious Ethics, F/F, F/M, Fade-To-Black Sex Scenes, Found Family Dynamics, Gun Violence, Horror Tropes, Knifeplay, M/M, More characters to appear later, Multi, Reincarnation, Treasure Island Compliant, Xander/awkward homoerotic tension with demons, about as much violence and sexual content as you'd expect, abuse of 19th century english literature, drug & alcohol use, eat the rich (literally), general content warning for Vampire Stuff, includes illustrations, modern day with historical flashbacks, murder of NPCs, original characters in minor roles as plot necessitates, pop culture references, post-canon(s), sapphic sea witches, vampirates!!, vampire-slaying harlots, vampires are problematic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:55:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 61,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25199632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manabombs/pseuds/manabombs
Summary: Five years after the destruction of Sunnydale, Buffy and Faith have to sort out their complicated relationship status while facing a supernatural threat that’s targeting all of Slayer-kind. Xander got tasked with babysitting a de-souled Spike but started dating him instead; now Xander finds himself precariously close to accidentally joining an undead gang (again). Willow has to learn how to put her trust in other witches to deal with some magical ocean weirdness.So, against all odds, you changed the world. What happens next?The world pushes back.
Relationships: "Calico" Jack Rackham/Charles Vane, "Calico" Jack Rackham/Spike (I'm so sorry), Anne Bonny/"Calico" Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny/Max, Anne Bonny/Max/Willow Rosenburg, Eleanor Guthrie/Charlotte Wells, Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers, Jack Lively/Harriet Lennox/Rani Balakrishnan, Violet Cross/Amelia Scanwell, Xander Harris/Spike
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	1. Prologue

  * I wrote this to cater to my own incredibly specific tastes but I imagine there have to be at least two other people on the internet who this appeals to. 
  * This is canon compliant with _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ seasons 1-7, _Angel_ seasons 1-5, _Black Sails_ seasons 1-4, and _Harlots_ seasons 1-3. 
    * ~~Unless I fuck up, because that’s a lot to keep track of.~~
  * This is NOT canon compliant with any of the Buffy comics. For the purposes of writing this fic, I have attempted to purge all memory of the Dark Horse comics from my mind. Any plot similarities between this work & the comics is coincidental. 
  * _Treasure Island_ by Robert Louis Stevenson has been granted the same canonical status that _Dracula_ by Bram Stoker has in BtVS--it is a published work that the characters are familiar with, widely believed to be a work of fiction but actually based on true events.
  * I have sprinkled in quotes from _Dracula_ as well as _Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelly and _Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_ by Robert Louis Stevenson. Because they’re in the public domain so I can do whatever I want.
  * The aforementioned works taught me that there’s no such thing as too many semicolons and you’re just going to have to deal with that.
  * I will not be murdering any canon characters in this story. However, parts of this fic will deal with the (non-graphic) death of Slayers, mainly in flashbacks. Sorry.
  * The majority of this fic takes place approximately five years after the end of BtVS/four years after the end of _Angel_. Which means it should technically take place in 2008. But I have no intention of adhering to that when I’m drawing the characters, because I want to draw 2020 fashions, not 2008 fashions. 
  * I apologize that I introduce a ton of characters in these first few chapters and some of them get very little screentime. In particular, my goal was for Buffy, Xander, and Willow’s plotlines to all be roughly the same length, but the first Xander section ended up substantially longer than the other two, so I’ll try to compensate for that later.
  * I’ve never written anything like this before. I’m probably in over my head here but I’ve never let that stop me before. This will probably be confusing. I hope that it’s only a mysterious amount of confusing and not a totally incoherent amount of confusing. 
  * This fic contains depictions of vampires behaving problematically. If you are not horny for vampires, you are not the target audience.
  * EDIT: 

Several people have asked “will this fic make sense if I haven’t seen _Harlots_?”. The short answer is that I’m trying to make it as comprehensible as possible for people who aren’t familiar with _Harlots_ , since I know that it’s pretty niche and has a considerably smaller fandom than the other series involved.

Back in the early development stages of this, I tried to see if I could make the plot work without _Harlots_ characters in the mix, but I ultimately decided that I really needed more female characters for specific roles. _Harlots_ also fits very nicely into the timeline I established. I recommend watching the series, especially since there are only 24 episodes total, though I totally understand why some people might be adverse to it, considering that it contains _a lot_ of sexual content, and there’s some subject matter (ie rape) that might be uncomfortable for some people. If there’s much interest, I wouldn’t mind putting together a summary of each season of the show so that people can have more context for these characters & their backstories. 

  * [Title track by Arcade Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvN-9iDIV68)



[ ](https://manabombs.tumblr.com/post/190315218961/in-2020-im-finally-living-my-truth-producing)

[ ](https://manabombs.tumblr.com/post/190794585301/vampirates)

[ ](https://manabombs.tumblr.com/post/614342489569165312/more-vampire-pirates-vampirates-from-my-wip-fic)

This is all of the art I've drawn for this fic so far since I put all drawing projects on hold while working to get all of this written, but my goal is to draw all of the characters who appear in this fic. But I make no attempts to hide my biases and will continue drawing Jack as much as I want because his wardrobe means a lot to me. If you want to see art updates as I finish pieces, [follow me on Tumblr](https://manabombs.tumblr.com/). All posts related to this fic can be found [in this tag](https://manabombs.tumblr.com/tagged/vampirates%20content).

* * *

_PROLOGUE_

**NEW YORK CITY**

**1977**

Less than a mile away, Studio 54 was thrumming with life; its inhabitants unaware that this would all be a short-lived flash in the pan that would someday be a legend in its own right. It was sometime after 2am, and the party would not be dying down for hours. But for those who sought an even more exclusive, more intimate venue, they came here, to a club that had no name, had no sign, had no visible entrance unless you were attuned with the supernatural and had enough of an inkling of the location to sense it out.

A week ago, Spike probably would have been denied entrance. But that was then. Now, he was the man of the hour: word had spread through the robust demon population of the city that the Slayer, Nikki Wood, was dead, and that Spike was the vamp responsible. There was all kinds of mischief that he could have been getting up to right about now, with no Slayer on the scene to foil any dastardly deeds. But at the moment, Spike just wanted to bask in his notoriety. So he had come here, to this painfully hip underworld establishment, to rub elbows with warlocks and demonic crime lords and the occasional human celebrity who had managed to swing an invite to this shadowy club where they could partake of high-end narcotics with a supernatural entourage. 

Dru had opted to stay in for the night. Well, more accurately, Spike had been unable to convince her to abandon the terribly enthralling tea party that she had been holding for her dolls for the past 72-straight-hours. It was a little frustrating, considering that he was still high on the thrill of his latest victory over a Slayer, and was in the mood to celebrate. 

By the time that Spike arrived, the venue was just starting to get buzzing for the evening. Spike could hardly make it three feet without being stopped by someone who wanted to congratulate him on his defeat of the Slayer; he absolutely loved it. He found a seat that wasn’t far from the bar, and allowed the free drinks to start flowing. A live band was playing in the corner; he enjoyed the way the heavy bass reverberated through him, the way the club’s blue ambient lighting illuminated the smoke from his cigarette.

He was on his third complimentary drink when another vampire stepped over to his table; the guy looked like a fledgeling that Spike normally wouldn’t pay much mind to, unless he was in need of a henchman for ordering around. “Jack would like to extend an invitation for you to join him,” the fledge stated, gesturing at one of the private booths in the corner of the club. 

Spike arched an eyebrow as he turned to look at the man in question. He wore a vintage coat--not exactly unusual, for a vampire--but it was _nice_ , a deep purple with ornate embroidery, and he had the kind of trendy haircut that Spike could appreciate. The sideburns were certainly a bold choice, but he pulled it off, somehow. Jack noticed that Spike was looking and met his gaze from across the room, tipping his glass in Spike’s direction and flashing a smile at him. Spike decided he had a nice smile. It was rare for Spike to feel this kind of aesthetic attraction to another man, but, well, he was a vampire, so he was physically incapable of feeling any shame about that sort of thing. 

Spike picked up his glass and crossed the room. There was a woman seated beside Jack, her face shadowed by her wide-brimmed hat and a cascade of blood-red hair streaked with silver; light flashed over her features when she tilted her head to cooly assess Spike as he approached, sneering but otherwise maintaining her aloof disposition. She smelled human, but there was something about her that suggested that it would be a dire mistake to dismiss the threat she posed. As he got closer, Spike could just barely distinguish the thrum of magic around her--a witch, then, and probably a powerful one; the kind of witch who could flay a man alive with nothing more than an incantation and the flick of her wrist. 

“Nice coat,” Jack remarked as Spike approached the table. 

“Thanks. Just got it.” The scent of Slayer still clung to the leather duster, but one’s nose had to be trained to pick up on that sort of thing. But Spike suspected that this guy was old. Older than Angelus, probably. From here, Spike could see that it wasn’t just Jack’s coat that looked expensive: he also wore a designer scarf and boots that probably cost more than the last car that Spike had stolen, and Spike found himself a little envious of the studded leather belt which bore a buckle in the shape of a skull and crossed swords.

“So I heard. Congratulations are in order.” Jack flashed a grin at him, and gestured to the empty chair across the table from his own. Spike took a seat, and finished off the contents of his glass--Jack didn’t hesitate to grab the bottle of top-shelf whiskey that sat beside him, and leaned in to refill it.

“Second Slayer I done in, actually,” Spike replied, keeping his tone casual. 

Jack looked positively delighted. “All by yourself, huh? That is impressive.” (The redhead did not seem very impressed.) He offered his hand, and Spike gave it a shake. “Captain Jack Rackham,” he introduced himself. The name seemed distantly familiar, like a faded memory from his human life, but Spike just couldn’t quite place it, so he dismissed that train of thought; it probably wasn’t important.

“Captain, is it?” Spike smirked. “I’m Spike. Used to go by William the Bloody, back in the day.”

Jack looked thoughtful for a moment, then grinned.

“I’ve heard of you.”

There was something about the way he said it that resounded in Spike. As though it was something meaningful, to be notorious enough to be _heard of_ by this man. 

Their eyes met across the table, and Spike decided that it was really unfair that someone could still look so charming with those fucking sideburns. 

The woman let out a disgusted sigh as she moved to stand, which made Jack turn to look at her inquisitively. “Darling? Are you leaving?” 

“Don’t need to stick around while you get your dick wet, Jack. Got better shit to do.” She left. 

“You ever fought a Slayer before?” Spike asked; Jack had looked disappointed by the witch’s departure, but his mood improved noticeably at the question.

“A few,” Jack replied coyly. 


	2. Buffy and the Vampire Slayers

**ENGLAND**

**PRESENT**

It was nights like these that Buffy missed Sunnydale. Fighting the evil undead wasn’t so bad when it was a nice seventy degrees out, surrounded by palm trees. Even in the middle of winter, all she needed was a light jacket. That was what she had expected when preparing for tonight’s mission. Now, on the shores of the Thames, with a cliche fog descending for the night, she felt the cold down to her bones. Hopefully she would soon be busied by the familiar task of combatting the bloodsucking creatures of the night, and maybe even work up a sweat. 

“Oi, what’s the hold up?” 

Buffy almost jumped as the silence was cut by the impatient question, turning to face Emily Lacey and holding a finger in front of her lips, the internationally recognized signal to _please shush._ There were times that she honestly reminded Buffy so much of Spike, and it wasn’t just because of the accent; she had once entertained herself with the thought that Emily seemed almost as though she could have been a descendant of his, except for the fact that Buffy strongly suspected that he had died a virgin. Emily huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, looking as though she was almost prepared to sass back, but was thankfully interrupted when the two other Slayers who rounded off their little team for the evening appeared out of the fog to rejoin them. 

“There’s more of them than we expected,” Charlotte explained, keeping her voice low.

“Yeah, approximately a fuckload more,” Violet Cross added helpfully. Neither of them seemed particularly bothered by this information. They were here at the archetypal abandoned warehouse by the docks to clear out a nest of vampires. (When Buffy had relocated to England, she had really hoped that she would at least get to spend a lot more time slaying in spooky old castles. It turned out that British vampires really weren’t any more sophisticated than their yankee counterparts.) The news that the nest was larger than expected wasn’t exactly a surprise. Now that there were thousands of Slayers active around the world, many vampires had come to consider themselves an endangered species. Some of them believed that they could even the odds by creating as many offspring as possible. Buffy doubted that this was really an effective method of ensuring survival--the bigger the nest, the faster the body count piled up, the more likely you were to attract the attention of Slayers--but it was certainly annoying. 

“What does that mean? Two dozen?” Buffy replied, already running strategies in her head. Charlotte responded with three fingers held up--three dozen. Well. Thirty-something vampires was nothing to take lightly. Thankfully, they were probably almost all fledges, less than a year out of the grave. Emily, Charlotte, and Violet had all been slaying for half a decade, they could manage a challenge like this. 

“Alright, we can handle this. Just make sure to cover the exits. I don’t want to lose any of them in this fog.” With that, the group split up, moving into the positions that Buffy had designated during her earlier briefing-slash-pep-talk. The team may not have been the most disciplined of Slayers, but Buffy liked it that way. They worked well together and knew how to improvise. 

On Buffy’s signal, they made their move. Each Slayer entered the warehouse simultaneously from different entrances. Violet’s crossbow bolts took out three vamps before they even reacted to the intrusion. 

The element of surprise did not last long. Within seconds, the fight had begun. Buffy easily fell into the rhythm of combat, leaving clouds of dust in her wake. After all this time, it came as naturally as breathing. 

She couldn’t say how much time had passed, exactly. Probably only five minutes. That was when the whirlwind of combat suddenly stopped. The vampires halted in their tracks. In unison, they turned their heads the same direction, as though they had all heard an alarm. And then they just stood there. Staring blankly ahead, perfectly still. It was, frankly, pretty freaky. 

“What the hell?” Emily announced, punching one of the vamps in the arm and earning no reaction whatsoever. 

Buffy’s attention was caught by a blur of movement out of the corner of her eye. Then she was running. Apparently, two vampires had not been affected by whatever it was that had overcome their companions. She was willing to bet that these were the two in charge of this whole operation. They were making a run for the exit, but Charlotte had also taken pursuit, and she caught one of them just as Buffy plunged a stake into the other.

She said something really cool when she staked the guy, too. One of those classic Buffy quips. Something really witty.

Buffy let herself really take in the sight of nearly twenty vampires standing about the room, perfectly unmoving, all standing at attention as though waiting for orders from an unseen marshal. Her eyes swept from one side of the warehouse to the other, over the features of each immobile creature looking so much like a corpse. 

“Have you ever seen this before?” Charlotte asked curiously.

“No, this is a new one,” Buffy replied. “And it’s creeping me out.” 

That earned a laugh from the brunette. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

Buffy stood face to face with one of the vampires, looking him straight in the eyes. She gave him a hard poke in the chest with the tip of her stake. No reaction. Well, that did make her job easier. She drove the wood into his heart and watched him crumble into dust, without earning any response from the other frozen undead figures. The other women took that as their cue, and began staking the vampires one by one.

Well, Emily and Charlotte did, at least. Violet plucked a wallet from one vamp’s pocket, then removed his watch, only reducing him to dust after the valuables had been acquired. 

“Oh, good idea!” Emily remarked, and began collecting rings off of the hands of vampires around her. 

“I’m not sure how I feel about this.” Buffy cocked a hand on her hip as she considered the situation before her.

“Well, all this stuff would just turn to dust if we don’t take it off them,” Charlotte reasoned. 

“Fair point…”

Violet and Emily had started piling up the assorted wallets and jewelry on a table, making sure they had checked the pockets of each vampire before slaying them. The vampires remained unmoving the entire time. Buffy opted to begin looking about the warehouse, hoping to see any clues as to what had caused the strange behavior. Anything that might indicate that other demons were nearby, or that someone had been meddling in spells. Other than the requisite excessive quantity of candles that featured in any vamp nest, nothing stood out as particularly magic-y. She made her way to the back of the warehouse, where a small office was located. It was well-used; empty malt liquor cans overflowed from the garbage; a cigarette butt still smoldered in the ashtray on the desk. 

The chair squeeked as she took a seat and began rifling through the papers on the desk and the contents of its drawers. Nothing stood out as particularly interesting, save for a pile of business cards that she found in the top drawer. Well, calling them “business cards” was a bit generous. They had been printed on standard printer paper and cut down to size by someone who wasn’t very sophisticated with a pair of scissors. They featured a logo of two bats in front of a moon, beneath which was the address of this warehouse and a phone number. 

Once Buffy was satisfied that there wasn’t anything else noteworthy to be found, she rejoined the other three slayers. They had finished the task of dusting the last of the vampires, and had started removing the cash from the wallets they’d collected. 

“Was _every one_ of these losers flat broke?” Emily bemoaned, tossing aside a brown leather wallet that had only contained one five pound note. 

“The undead aren’t great at holding down day jobs,” Buffy replied, picking up the discarded wallet. Tucked inside was a business card just like the ones she had found in the office. Emily leaned over to look at it curiously. 

“Since when do leeches carry business cards?”

“That’s the million dollar question,” Buffy responded, allowing Charlotte and Violet to take a look at the card as well. “I found a bunch of these back in the office. I guess that explains why it was so crowded here tonight.”

Buffy decided to split into pairs and sweep the area for a radius of several blocks, continuing the search for clues as to what had caused the vampires to behave so strangely. Stepping outside of the warehouse, she could hear all of the sounds of the river, the water lapping against the docks, occasional foghorns in the distance. There wasn’t much to see, though; the fog had grown even thicker since they had been inside. It figured that tonight was the night that lived up to all of the tropes in that regard. Even if some big ugly demon had been standing right outside of the warehouse casting some kind of spell, they wouldn’t have to worry about being spotted fleeing the scene on a night like this. The Slayers spent over an hour scouting the area, but no clues turned up. 

It had been two years since Buffy and Charlotte had moved into the flat in Piccadilly. There had been dozens of locations around the globe that Buffy could have chosen to relocate to; there were thousands of Slayers now, but her expertise and experience put her in high demand. She had chosen London for one very simple reason, however--Dawn had started attending university. At the beginning, Buffy had lived at the new Council headquarters, but after less than six months of that arrangement, she had found herself desperately longing for a more distinct separation between her personal and professional life. Charlotte had been the one to make the arrangements for their new residence, and had somehow (Buffy had her suspicions) coerced the Council into footing the bill. Despite Buffy’s past discomfort with the prospect of using her status as Slayer for personal gain, it seemed fair that the Council at least ensured that she had a roof over her head. She was closer to Dawn now, even if they didn’t get many opportunities to see each other between Dawn’s class load and Buffy’s slayage, especially since Dawn insisted on doubling her own workload by studying demon anatomy and physiology alongside their human counterparts, but they at least made time in their schedules for lunch twice a month.

“Are you going to eat this?” Charlotte asked, gesturing at a box of leftover pad thai. 

“Hm? Oh, no, go for it.” Buffy was just finishing up her email to Andrew describing the odd events of the evening. She knew she could trust him to research the matter, or find out if any other Slayers worldwide had observed anything similar lately. Strangely enough, Buffy found herself missing the hours spent in the library or Magic Box searching through musty old books for clues; she didn’t get the chance to participate much in the research these days. 

“Thanks Buff,” Charlotte replied, heading over to fling herself on the sofa and turn on the television.

She was a good roommate; Buffy didn’t even mind occasionally overhearing Charlotte and her girlfriend going at it in the other room--Buffy was no voyeur, but it was actually kind of nice knowing that at least _someone_ around here currently had a sex life to speak of; she liked seeing people in love who managed to maintain a relatively healthy relationship even between all of the Slaying, it was a reminder that it wasn’t a lost cause. 

They had bonded because they were both Slayers, because they fought side-by-side on dozens of occasions over the past half-a-decade, because they shared the same strange dreams about the lives of past Slayers and the same connection to this ancient and powerful force that Buffy had never been able to truly articulate to the other Scoobies, because they were the same age (which made them older than the majority of the other Slayers), because their personalities were compatible and Charlotte appreciated her puns and sense of humor. But there was more to it than that. Some time ago, Buffy had come to realize that she and Charlotte both experienced a profound sense of loneliness, even when they had been living at the Council headquarters where they had been surrounded by so many of their fellow Slayers that some of the girls had been sharing beds, even when Charlotte’s family was there too, and Buffy had Giles and Dawn around. 

It was no mystery why Buffy was lonely--she missed the Scoobies, missed Sunnydale. Xander had lived at the Council headquarters too, for a time, but he had become restless once all of the construction and renovation projects had been completed--the Watcher life just wasn’t for him. When the opportunity to move to another sunny beach town on the California coast had presented itself, he had taken it, and Buffy didn’t blame him for that; it was nice having an excuse to visit her former home state several times a year. She and Xander texted each other regularly throughout the day, and talked on the phone several times a week, but it just wasn’t the same as having her best friend around to watch B movies together and to provide a constant supply of bad jokes while she was sparring vamps. At least she didn’t have to worry about him getting himself murdered in her absence these days, now that he and Spike were looking out for each other--something that was still kind of weird to think about, but also entirely predictable (and maybe she thought it was just a little hot, not that she was ready to give Spike the satisfaction of admitting to that).

And then there was Willow. The Willow situation was a whole ‘nother matter altogether. 

There was a whole wide world of magic out there--more than one world, technically--and Willow was still trying to find her place in all of it. Who knows how long that was going to take. Buffy knew it was something that couldn’t be rushed. She could still depend on Willow’s help whenever she needed it, and the witch was able to visit often enough, though she didn’t always respond to text messages nearly as promptly as Xander considering that she wasn’t even on this plane of reality 24/7. Sometimes, Buffy found herself daydreaming about the day that Dawn had finished med school, and Willow had come to the place in her training as a witch that she was ready to settle down in one place again, and maybe they’d all live in Santa Carla with Xander (and for some reason in these daydreams Xander always had a big dog, like a golden retriever or a husky or something) and hang out at the boardwalk on Friday nights, and things would be just a little bit like they used to be. 

There were also the times that Buffy missed having Tara to talk to. Missed Anya’s bubbly enthusiasm. Even missed Cordelia’s courage to always say what needed to be said. To say nothing of the dull ache she felt whenever she thought of her mother’s absence. She had so many friends and allies and even mentors whom she had grown close to in the years since Sunnydale. But there was no replacing the people that she had lost along the way.

The reasons for Buffy’s periodic bouts of loneliness were obvious. The reasons for Charlotte’s were more enigmatic.

Charlotte had lost a few friends in the years since she was called as a Slayer, particularly when many of the girls she had trained with were lost in the Battle of Los Angeles, only a year after they had been Chosen. She mourned those deaths. But that wasn’t the entirety of it. Sometimes, Buffy was unable to shake the suspicion that Charlotte was mourning something she had never possessed in the first place; that she felt like a piece of herself was missing, somehow. 

Maybe it was nothing. But sometimes, when Dawn was visiting, and she and Buffy were catching up on gossip or just sitting on the couch together watching a movie or arguing over what they should order for takeout, Charlotte would have an odd look in her eye, as though she was experiencing bittersweet nostalgia for something she had lost.

It was strange. Because Charlotte didn’t have a sister, she never had. She had a young half-brother, who was adorable. But no sister. 

On a couple of occasions, Buffy had heard Charlotte talking in her sleep, had heard the name “Lucy”. After the third recurrence, Buffy had finally broached the subject, asking Charlotte who “Lucy” was. Charlotte was confused by the question; she had never known anyone noteworthy by that name.

* * *

Buffy had a dream about drowning. She hated when she had dreams about drowning.

Any signs of the moody fog that had blanketed the city had completely dissipated by the time that Buffy awoke and stepped out for her morning jog, hoping for the exertion to clear her head. It was a nice, clear day, a bit on the chilly side but perfect for exercise. On her return to the flat, she stopped at a nearby bakery for her customary latte and croissant.

“The Council called,” Charlotte announced the moment that Buffy stepped back into the apartment. With a sigh, Buffy withdrew her phone from her pocket and checked the messages. Sure enough, there were two missed calls and a voicemail. She usually tried to at least get through her morning routine before dealing with work matters. If it was an emergency, she would have gotten a call from someone’s personal phone, so she didn’t quite feel guilty about the situation.

“What’s it about?” 

“There’s a meeting this afternoon. They want us to be there. Well, they mainly want _you_ to be there,” Charlotte explained.

Well, there went all of Buffy’s thrilling plans for the day. It would take several hours to drive out to the Council headquarters, which meant that they should probably get going soon. 

As Buffy was pulling the car out of the driveway, a figure suddenly ran up to the car, knocking on the window. It was Violet. “You guys headed to HQ? Can I hitch a ride?” 

“The more the merrier,” Buffy answered, unlocking the door and allowing the younger Slayer to dive into the back seat. 

It was an uneventful drive. The city faded away to picturesque green hills before they reached their destination. There were sheep. Buffy still wasn’t over the novelty of all of the sheep, and Charlotte had teased her about it on more than one occasion. 

The new Council headquarters was located in a country estate that had belonged to one of the Watchers that had gone kabloo-y when the First orchestrated the detonation of the previous headquarters; without any living heirs, the management of his estate had fallen into the hands of the surviving Council members. The Devon coven had ensured that the estate was protected from not just supernatural threats, but human surveillance as well.

The main appeal of the property had been it’s size. There were many acres of fields and forest ensuring privacy; it was over 20 kilometres from the front door to the nearest town. The main house had over a dozen bedrooms. The additional dormitory building that was constructed next door in record time added another hundred. And for those first couple years after the new Slayers had been called en masse, that still wasn’t enough. But most of those Slayers had over five years of experience under their belts now (it still amazed Buffy every day; she remembered being taught that her predecessors were _lucky_ if they lasted five years); they had long since graduated from the makeshift Slayer training academy that the Scoobies had needed to rush to organize, and the majority of them had returned to their hometowns, or headed off to demonic hotspots around the world where Slayers were needed. About every other month, a new Slayer would awaken, and occasionally they would be brought here for training, but that wasn’t always the case--the Council may still have been sorely lacking for Watchers, but with so many experienced Slayers around these days there were plenty of volunteers to assist in training the new girls all over the world without needing to send them to the Council headquarters. There were still a handful of Slayers that chose to reside there, however, whether because they had simply grown fond of the place or because they enjoyed living in the mansion rent-free or because they wanted to take part in the actual tedious work of the Council’s operations. 

As the car approached the front of the building, it soon became apparent that they were not the only ones paying a visit today. 

There were two women on the front steps of the building, one who looked no older than Dawn, the other was likely her mother. And, apparently, their presence was not exactly welcomed. Nancy Birch, one of the handful of individuals who had committed to a rigorous crash-course in Watcher-dom, stood in the doorway and appeared to be giving the visitors a good verbal thrashing; the scene suggested that they were more of a nuisance than any actual threat, particularly when Buffy noticed that Kitty Carter and Fanny Lambert, two of the resident Slayers, were watching from the second story window, laughing at the argument that was taking place below. 

Buffy parked the car a few meters away from the scene, and put active effort into behaving casually as she exited the vehicle, as though she wasn’t delightfully curious about getting the scoop on the drama that was unfolding in front of her. Nope, this was Totally Professional Buffy, who definitely wasn’t hoping that she might get the chance to see a Watcher beat up some random Baby Boomer. 

It didn’t take long to decipher the situation that she had just walked (well, driven) into; the older woman appeared to be holding a Bible, and both she and her daughter were wearing crosses large enough for Buffy to see even from a distance. Not that there was anything wrong with either of those facts, of course; this was a residence for _Vampire Slayers_ , after all. But the ranting about “young women making pacts with the devil” was kind of a red flag.

This sort of thing was one of the unfortunate side-effects of the fact that more and more civilians were becoming conscious of the existence of Slayers every day. There were plenty of people who were grateful for the existence of a loosely-organized network of superpowered demon fighters to protect mankind, or who were just fascinated by their existence, but there were also those who had reacted to the news with fear and mistrust. Some of the religious folks had viewed the coming of the Slayers as a gift from God; others were convinced that the Slayers must be demons themselves, or that they must have made some sort of unholy pact to gain their powers. It was particularly awkward knowing that they weren’t 100% wrong about the Slayers’ powers being demonic in origin, but, hey, it’s not like these people actually had any proof of that.

Buffy had been so focused on trying to decipher the older woman’s grievances that she almost didn’t notice the younger visitor slip away, not until she realized that Violet was absent as well; she looked just in time to see the two of them disappear behind a large oak tree. _Curious_.

Charlotte sidled up to Buffy, obviously just as entertained by the confrontation as Buffy was. “Did Violet go inside already?” Charlotte asked curiously.

Buffy gave a shake of her head, quietly gesturing for Charlotte to follow. She walked down the driveway at a deliberately casual pace, until they were in a position that allowed them to catch a glimpse of where Violet and the other girl were concealed on the other side of the tree. _Amelia_ , that was her name--Buffy suddenly remembered hearing Violet mention meeting a cute girl named Amelia. They were speaking too quietly for Buffy to hear, but Amelia appeared flustered, Violet flirtatious. The latter withdrew a pen from her purse and then took Amelia’s hand in her own, writing something--presumably a phone number--on her palm. Amelia was blushing as she studied what was written on her own hand, then held it close to her chest in a careful manner, as though concerned about the ink smearing. 

Charlotte and Buffy exchanged a grin.

In that moment, another car could be heard approaching, and Buffy turned to see that it was a local taxi. Amelia must have noticed it as well, because she hurried out from behind the tree and returned to her mother’s side, taking the woman by the arm and guiding her over to the taxi. Nancy must have called it; she made her way over to the driver’s side door and handed him some cash. Violet lingered by the tree as she watched the vehicle depart. Well, whatever was going on there, it certainly explained Violet’s sudden desire to accompany them--it had seemed odd at the time, considering that Violet usually showed a very pointed disinterest in Council business.

Now that the drama was over, Nancy was able to properly greet the Slayers that had arrived while she was otherwise preoccupied. She draped an arm around Charlotte’s shoulders as the two of them both headed inside; the Watcher had been like a second mother to Charlotte since long before she had been called as a Slayer, and they always had plenty to catch up on when Charlotte visited. 

As Buffy entered the building, she was greeted by Fanny and Kitty hurrying down the stairs; Violet sidestepped around Buffy and headed in the direction of the kitchen, which was always well-stocked to keep up with the demands of a house full of Slayers.

“Hey, Buffy, can I talk to you for a minute?” Fanny asked as she reached the bottom of the stairs, sounding almost sheepish. Buffy was used to that; as adamantly as she had insisted that her seniority as a Slayer shouldn’t be something to set her apart from the other girls, many of them still acted awe-struck around her, as though they were in the presence of a walking legend. Fanny had been an acquaintance of Buffy for long enough now that it wasn’t usually an obstacle in their interactions; she must have been nervous about something. 

“Of course you can,” Buffy replied, allowing Fanny to lead them to an unoccupied room so that they could have a semblance of privacy. The room had probably once been called something snooty like ‘the drawing room’, but the old-timey furniture had mostly been replaced with more comfortable (and durable) couches and an entertainment center with several different gaming systems.

“You probably know already that I’m on pregnancy leave…” Fanny began. Buffy nodded. “I’ve been giving it some thought… A lot of thought, really…” She sounded anxious, which made Buffy furrow her brow, displeased by the mere notion that there was something weighing so heavily on Fanny’s conscience. “Everyone has been real great about it, and says that I can take as long as I need before I decide to go back to slaying… But I don’t think I want to go back to it at all. I don’t want my little girl to grow up without a mother, Buffy.”

Okay. Wow. Buffy gave herself a moment to really process what Fanny was telling her. And then she was pulling Fanny into an abrupt (but still carefully gentle) hug as she felt herself tearing up a bit. 

“That’s so beautiful… You’re going to be an amazing mom, Fanny, and I’ll personally make sure that no one gets in the way of that.” Buffy’s voice cracked a bit under the weight of her emotions, and Fanny patted her on the back. 

It seemed like Buffy always ended up getting caught up in the drama of other Slayers’ personal lives every time she visited the Council headquarters. But she wouldn’t have it any other way. She wanted to make sure that none of these Slayers experienced the same sense of isolation that Buffy and every Slayer before her had been faced with. And even though Buffy had no plans to have children of her own (she was perfectly content waiting for Dawn to provide nieces or nephews for her to spoil), she was determined to ensure that none of the younger Slayers had to face the same horrible tension between motherhood and their calling that Nikki Wood had to experience. What was the point of there being thousands of Slayers now, if not to give them an actual choice in how they lived their lives? 

Buffy was caught up in her thoughts as she made her way through the halls of the manor, and jolted in surprise as she nearly ran face-first into Robin Wood--as though her thoughts had somehow summoned him. 

“Whoa! Hi!” Buffy exclaimed with an awkward grin as she took a step backward to put a more casual distance between them, and Robin greeted her with that stunning smile of his. 

“It’s nice to see you, Buffy. I’m glad you could make it.”

“Yeah, wow, I’m glad to see you too. I thought you were supposed to be in San Francisco.” Robin had been tasked with establishing another Council headquarters there, but there had been considerable delays to the efforts, both of the supernatural and the bureaucratic variety. 

“I flew in for the meeting. Just arrived this morning,” he replied.

“I didn’t realize it was that big of a deal…” Buffy’s mood deflated a bit; she had been hoping that the subject of the meeting wouldn’t be too serious.

Robin offered a reassuring smile and a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll buy you dinner after.” It was obviously intended as some sort of consolation for whatever Buffy was going to have to endure in the meeting that they were about to walk into. It did succeed in cheering her up somewhat; she was beginning to suspect that there was something magical about his ability to find amazing restaurants in the middle of nowhere.

“Deal.”

* * *

A long table spanned the center of the room, and it appeared that most of the Council members who would be present for this meeting had already taken their seats; this was certainly a bigger affair than Buffy had anticipated. 

Giles was present at the table, and he looked up and offered Buffy a tired smile in way of greeting. Any dreams that Giles once held regarding his retirement from Watcher-dom had been dashed when there were suddenly thousands of Slayers in need of training and guidance; he didn’t perform full-time Watcher duties in the same way as he had when Buffy was in High School, but he had been heavily involved in setting up the new Council, particularly when it came to setting the curriculum for training new Watchers. Andrew was seated beside him, chatting his ear off about something that Giles did not seem to be paying much attention to. But he was probably grateful to have Andrew seated next to him since it provided a buffer between him and Roger Wyndam-Pryce, who sat on the other side of Andrew. Other than Giles, Roger was the primary remaining member of the former incarnation of the Watcher’s Council, one of the few who had been fortunate enough to survive the First Evil’s attempts to wipe them out. He truly retained the attitudes of the old guard; a dour man who had fought back against every major change that Buffy had proposed to the way the Council conducted its affairs--the years that they had the misfortune of working with the man had provided some valuable insight regarding Wesley’s emotional baggage. A couple years back, Charles Gunn had awkwardly explained that though Wesley was, in fact, deceased, he was not entirely gone from this world, since he had died while still bound to his Wolfram & Hart contract and was therefore stuck in some sort of purgatory of undead servitude to the company; Roger refused to acknowledge his son’s continued existence, and had spoken of his son as though he had been dead to him even before his heart had stopped beating.

William North was seated directly across from Pryce, presumably because he was one of the few Council members who was capable of remaining perfectly civil when dealing with the man. Margaret Wells sat across from Andrew--there was no relation there, as far as anyone had been able to find, but Andrew had taken to considering himself a distant cousin of the Wells women regardless. Nancy was seated on the other side of Margaret, opposite Giles. The three of them had been some of the first members of the new Council; they had all joined when Charlotte was called as a Slayer, out of a desire to support her in whatever way they were able. While William and Nancy had become Watchers in a more traditional capacity, Margaret’s role within the Council was more administrative in function; unofficially, she was practically the second-in-command of the organization, and handled most of the financial matters. Buffy had found herself deeply grateful for Margaret’s presence on more than one occasion, and was fairly sure that the Council would have financially collapsed several years ago if Margaret hadn’t been working wonders in her dealings with the accounts. 

Fanny and Kitty seated themselves at the far end of the table; they didn’t always concern themselves with Council business, but this meeting appeared significant enough that the Slayers currently present at the estate were curious enough to make an appearance. 

Buffy took a seat next to Giles, and Robin sat across from her, next to Nancy. That left an open seat between them at the head of the table. It would not remain open for long, however--Charlotte entered the room alongside her girlfriend, the head of the Watcher’s Council, Eleanor Guthrie, who claimed her spot at the front of the hall. Charlotte didn’t bother to sit, just leaned against the wall nearby as though she was just there to eavesdrop, not actually a part of the meeting. 

Eleanor was no older than Buffy herself, and if it hadn’t been for her, the Council wouldn’t exist today. If it hadn’t been for Eleanor, Buffy probably never would have given the Watcher’s Council a second chance at all. But Eleanor and Buffy were on the same page when it came to many of the reforms that were necessary; Eleanor was just as sick as the old Boy’s Club as Buffy herself. They had first met less than a month after the new Slayers were empowered. Eleanor was one of the few surviving alumni of the old Watcher’s Academy--one of the few female students the institution had ever accepted, and only because she came from a long family legacy of Watchers, much like the Wyndam-Pryce family. In Eleanor’s school days, she was considered a prodigy. But at some point, she had fallen out of the Council’s good graces. Buffy still did not know the full story. She just knew that Eleanor had survived the First Evil’s attempts to obliterate the entire Watcher’s Council because at the time, Eleanor was not a member of the Council--she had been excommunicated. Whatever her offense had been, Giles was apparently willing to put it in the past, which was good enough for Buffy. 

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Eleanor began to speak, and the last of the chatter around the table died down so that everyone could give her their full attention. “I would not have asked you all here today if it was not a pressing matter.”

She paused as another individual rushed into the room--it was Violet, who had a half-eaten ice cream bar in hand. She went to stand beside Charlotte and continued eating her ice cream, making a gesture with her hand as though to say that Eleanor was welcome to resume speaking.

With a soft sigh, Eleanor continued. “We’re here today to discuss the Initiative.”

“The Americans?” Nancy replied, sounding surprised that the issue on the docket was not a supernatural one.

“Yes, that’s rather the problem, actually,” Eleanor responded. “As I’m sure you’re all aware, they’ve been getting increasingly bold in their efforts to recruit Slayers into their organization. As a branch of the United States military, they have specifically been trying to draft Slayers who are U.S. citizens.” 

The subject made Buffy’s mood turn sour. After Adam’s defeat, Riley had given her the impression that the Initiative was largely defunct. Apparently, that had not lasted long; their funding had ballooned significantly by the time they learnt of the existence of thousands of new Slayers, and their presence had only become more prominent since then. Buffy had to turn down their job offers on several occasions. She had not been polite about it.

“It would seem that they have loosened their regulations regarding citizenship. In the past week, we’ve gotten word from over a dozen Slayers that Initiative recruiters approached them directly, offering the same bloated salary and benefits package that they’ve been using to try to rope in the Americans, along with a fast-track to U.S. citizenship. The girls who received these offers were all different nationalities--British, Chinese, Argentinian, Russian--it would seem that all Slayers are now targets for recruitment, regardless of origin.” As Eleanor finished speaking, she reached for a pitcher of water on the table and poured herself a glass, taking a long sip. Eleanor was good at keeping her tone even, but Buffy could tell that Eleanor was just as unhappy with these developments as they made Buffy to hear about.

“I appreciate being updated on these developments in a timely manner, Ms. Guthrie, but I do not understand why you sound so concerned,” Pryce responded. He sounded vaguely patronizing--to Buffy, he always sounded patronizing. She was pretty sure he was physically incapable of maintaining an entire conversation without patronizing. “In the past, yes, it was integral to ensure that the Slayer served the Council, was not unduly influenced by other interests. But there are now more Slayers than there are Watchers; if some of them should wish to take this job offer, I believe the Initiative’s extensive resources may indeed be beneficial in the fight against evil.”

Buffy was surprised to hear Pryce actually arguing _in favor_ of the idea of the Council sacrificing some of its control over the Slayers to another party. But, then again, maybe it wasn’t that surprising--because this wasn’t _his_ Council anymore, it was a Council run by Slayers for Slayers, not a bunch of stuffy old men in tweed who thought that they knew what was best for everyone just because they came from the country that was the best at colonizing stuff. Pryce was not very subtle about the fact that he thought that Eleanor was going to run the Council into the ground; no wonder he thought that Slayers would be better off taking orders from the U.S. military.

“Well, hold on a second. The Initiative is bad news, amigo. Remember the whole demon super soldier fiasco?” Andrew interjected.

“That was the work of misguided individuals who are no longer part of the operation. The Initiative no longer engages in that sort of experimentation,” Pryce replied.

Nancy let out a derisive scoff from the other side of the table. “Ha! I don’t believe that for a second; don’t tell me you’re really naive enough to believe that, Pryce.”

“I’m gonna have to side with Nance on this one,” Buffy stated. “I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, I really did. But they proved to me that they still had doctors working on that vampire chip stuff even after the Sunnydale base was abandoned, and that was years ago. Who knows what they’ve been getting up to since then?”

“Yes, we must be realists about this,” Giles agreed, and Buffy found herself grateful for the support. “The Initiative has already displayed a willingness to experiment on their own soldiers; we should proceed under the assumption that they are _very_ capable of engaging in unethical operations, even if their research division suffered heavy setbacks in the past.”

Pryce looked irritated, but seemed to at least be taking Giles’ words into consideration. 

“Do I really have to be the one to say it?” Violet was half-mumbling around her ice cream, which she quickly finished eating so that she could speak more clearly. Buffy had to turn a bit in her chair so that she could face the younger Slayer as she spoke. “Well, if I’m remembering right, they didn’t just put a fancy behavior chip in you vamp friend, they put some kinda mind-control chip in your soldier boy too, right B? Who’s to say they don’t wanna try to stick chips in us Slayers too?”

Buffy grimaced a bit. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered the possibility…”

Pryce let out a scoff. “Now you’re just jumping to conclusions without any evidence. You sound as bad as Harris and Rosenburg.”

Giles fixed the other man with an irritated glare. “Harris an-- _Xander and Willow_ were instrumental in defeating Adam and cleaning up the Initiative’s mess the first time around, they have every reason to be suspicious of the organization.”

“I agree with Rupert,” Mr. North spoke up for the first time. “We would be foolish not to be highly critical of this group.” There were nods from many of the people gathered around the table. 

“Then it would seem that the majority of us are on the same page,” Eleanor stated. “We can’t forbid the Slayers from accepting these job offers; they have the freedom to make these choices for themselves. But we should try to strongly discourage them; that’s the responsible thing to do.”

“I wouldn’t be too worried. My girls are smart. I’m sure they’ll make the right choice,” Margaret declared confidently.

* * *

> Emily Lacey hurried down the sidewalks of downtown London. She was already late for her appointment, but she didn’t break into a run, just a brisk speedwalk. Rounding a corner, she found the sidewalk obstructed by a gaggle of tourists, and had to bite her tongue to resist the impulse to swear; she stepped off the curb and into the street to get around them, and got honked at by a passing car--she actually did start swearing at that. 
> 
> Thankfully, she spotted her destination up ahead, and rushed down the sidewalk to the cafe without further incident. 
> 
> There was a woman close to her own age seated at one of the tables and sipping from a cup of coffee. She had long brown hair that was pulled into a neat, professional looking bun, and wore a simple black suit. She waved at Emily as she approached, giving further confirmation that this was, in fact, the individual that Emily had scheduled the appointment with. Emily made her way over to the table and seated herself across from the brunette, shaking her hand when it was offered.
> 
> “Hello Ms. Lacey, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m glad you could make it. I’m Special Agent Samantha Finn, and I work for the Initiative.”

* * *

Buffy pulled Andrew aside into another room after the meeting to ask if he had found any information regarding the strange behavior she had witnessed from the vampires during last night’s patrol. 

“Well, I haven’t had much time to research it yet. I have a couple of ideas that I’m going to follow up on later. You should know that it wasn’t an isolated incident, though. Two other Slayers contacted us last night to report really similar events, and another one this morning. They’re all over the place, too. Portland, Maine; Sydney; Istanbul… whatever’s going on, it’s global. Which, y’know, narrows down the possibilities, at least.”

Buffy didn’t like the sound of that. But as long as it was only affecting vampires, she would try not to get too worried about it. She found herself wondering if it was serious enough that she should warn Angel and Spike; Xander would probably appreciate the heads-up, at the very least. She made a mental note to try calling him later; it was only 5am for him--no, wait, 7am, he and Spike were in Miami for some reason.

“I swear, he looks for every possible excuse to undermine me…” Eleanor ranted as she and Charlotte came striding into the room.

“Are we complaining about Pryce?” Buffy perked up as she turned her attention to the head of the Council; Andrew didn’t look bothered by the interruption to their conversation, he seemed just as eager to gossip as Buffy was.

“Of course,” Charlotte replied in a faintly amused manner.

“I’m pretty sure he tried to get me deported,” Andrew remarked. “You wouldn't think it would be so annoying to get that visa stuff sorted out. I mean, I thought our countries were friends, and they basically let French people just wander in here…”

“Sometimes I really wish he had just blown up with the rest of those old blowhards who thought that the Council should behave as though we were all back in the 18th century wearing stupid powdered wigs,” Eleanor continued her tirade, completely ignoring Andrew. She then let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate. There were some good people who died that day, I shouldn’t make light of it.”

“Hey, no need to apologize, I understand what you mean,” Buffy replied reassuringly, and Charlotte nodded in agreement. “Maybe you should come back to the city with us and spend the night at our place, get a break from the stuffy old guys.”

* * *

Eleanor had some paperwork to finish before they could depart, so it wasn’t until late in the evening--after Buffy had gone into town with Robin for the meal he had promised her--that they ended up leaving the Council headquarters, and they would not arrive in the city until after nightfall. Violet opted not to return with them, instead choosing to spend the night at the headquarters; Buffy suspected it had something to do with the girl she had seen Violet flirting with earlier in the day. _Good for her._

When they arrived at the flat, Buffy paused on the doorstep with her keys in hand. Something felt… _off._ Like her Slayer sense was tingling. She turned and made eye contact with Charlotte; the other Slayer seemed to share her concerns. Charlotte placed a hand on Eleanor’s arm, as though ready to protect her at the slightest sign of danger. Buffy unlocked the door and opened it slowly, visually sweeping the room for intruders. 

She felt a complex wave of emotions as she realized that the trespasser was Faith.

The other Slayer was seated on the sofa, feet kicked up on the coffee table, and she was helping herself to Buffy’s stash of potato chips.

“ _Faith?_ What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? How did you get in here?”

Now that it was clear that the intruder was (probably) not a threat, Charlotte entered the room with Eleanor right behind her. “Faith is here? Like, _the_ Faith?” Charlotte asked excitedly as she came to stand beside Buffy, looking at Faith curiously.

“My reputation precedes me, huh? You’re gonna give a girl an ego,” Faith replied with a smirk, setting the chips aside and brushing her fingers off on her jeans as she stood up. “Yeah, I’m Faith. You must be Charlotte.”

“I’m confused,” Eleanor stated, furrowing her eyebrows. “Is this another one of your disastrous exes, Buffy?”

“Erm… it’s complicated…” Buffy stammered. “...You cut your hair,” she observed, changing the subject as she took in the sight of Faith’s much shorter haircut. “It looks nice.”

“Thanks, B. You’re lookin’ good yourself.”

Suddenly, Buffy seemed to realize what had seemed _off_ about the situation. 

The past few times that she had seen Faith, she had actually sensed the other Slayer’s presence quite some time before they were close enough to one another to actually come face-to-face. Because Faith had the scythe with her, and Buffy could always _feel_ when the scythe was near. She had entrusted Faith with the possession of it ever since they had parted ways after the Battle of Los Angeles. 

“Wait, Faith. Where’s the scythe?” Buffy asked, her concern evident.

“That’s why I came to see you, Buffy,” Faith replied, her tone somber. “It was stolen.”

“How? By who?” 

“This slimy little vampire cult. They lured me into a trap just to distract me while they snatched it. Only got away with it because there were too damn many of them.” Faith’s tone suggested that she had already been beating herself up about this, so Buffy urged herself not to be too harsh on her about it. 

“Okay. We can get it back. If we work together, it should be no prob.”

“You let a mystical artefact of such importance be _stolen by vampires_?” Eleanor interjected, her tone harsh; apparently, Buffy’s conviction not to be overly-critical was not shared by all parties present. 

“Yeah, I fucked up. But I’m going to fix it,” Faith replied, scowling at Eleanor. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Eleanor Guthrie, head of the Watcher’s Council.” Eleanor’s voice was imposing, her demeanor that of someone who was accustomed to having to defend every shred of authority she had earnt over the years.

Faith actually _sneered_ in response. “ _Oh_ . You’re _her_.”

Faith was not a member of the Council. Faith had no interest in joining the Council. Faith had been the most outspoken critic of rebuilding the Council in the first place. She had made certain that Buffy understood in unequivocal terms that she would not be involved in Council operations; if Buffy ever needed Faith’s help with something, she would seek it as an independent Slayer, not on the Council’s behalf.

“You know, B, I thought that if I caught you here at home, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of those tweed-jockeys from the Council. Didn’t realize that your gal-pal here would actually be bringing one home to warm her bed.” Wow, Faith had connected those dots pretty quickly. “Guess I can’t judge you too harsh for that one, though. You’re much prettier than Wesley,” Faith added with a bit of a smirk, openly appreciating Eleanor’s features. Buffy couldn’t even be jealous about it, because, well, she agreed that Eleanor was prettier than Wesley.

“Why don’t we go for a walk, Faith?” Buffy suggested, already moving to take Faith by the arm and attempt to steer her toward the front door. Eleanor looked as though she wanted to object; she clearly didn’t want to be left out of any further conversation concerning Important Slayer Business.

“Good idea,” Charlotte declared, effectively cutting off any protest that may have come from Eleanor. 

Buffy actually let out a sigh of relief once she and Faith managed to exit the apartment without any further argument and the door securely clicked into place behind them. She led the way towards a nearby park, and waited until they had walked half a block before speaking. “So… vampire cult…”

“Ugh, yeah. Not one that I’ve seen before. But that ain’t much of a surprise, seems like they’re popping up left and right these last few years.”

Buffy nodded in agreement. She’d seen her fair share causing trouble in Europe recently. It wasn’t so surprising that so many vamps had gotten those sorts of notions in their heads, between the drastic increase in Slayers hunting them down, stronger and meaner demons around to pick on them, and probably even Initiative GI Joes trying to get their hands on them. “Do you have any idea where they could have run off too?”

“Yeah, actually. They were heading to Whitby.”

Well, that was convenient. It wasn’t a total surprise; it had become a popular spot for vamps, or humans hoping to get a glimpse of one. “We can head up there first thing in the morning, if you’re not in too much of a hurry. I wanna get some sleep before making the drive.” 

“That works,” Faith agreed. 

They had reached the park by this point, and Buffy found herself appreciating that it was a nice evening, and was glad that the heavy fog from the previous night had not returned. She seated herself on the first bench they reached, and Faith took a seat beside her. 

“I hope you weren’t planning on hitting the hay anytime soon, though. I was hoping we could catch up a bit.” The palm of Buffy’s hand rested against the bench; Faith’s fingers brushed against hers as she spoke. It was a small gesture, slight enough to be ignored if Buffy chose. 

It was remarkable that Faith could still make Buffy feel butterflies in her stomach just as effectively as she did back when they were teenagers. At least now, Buffy didn’t have to just sit there and wonder if she was misreading Faith’s signals; no more getting flustered and waiting for Faith to make the first move. True, their relationship was complicated and confusing in whole new ways, but it was a relief to have moved on from the whole ' _But we’re both girls_ ’ hangup. 

“‘Catch up’, huh? Like this?” Buffy asked, before she was leaning in to press her lips against Faith’s. 


	3. The Lost Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike/Xander idiots to lovers speedrun

**SANTA CARLA**

**SEVEN MONTHS AGO**

**  
**The house was brand-spanking new, and had as much personality as a loaf of Wonder Bread. It sat among row after row of identical houses, most of which were unoccupied. The housing market just wasn’t the same after the decimation of Sunnydale had sent its demon residents scattered up and down the California coast, and then a year later Angel’s little spat with the senior partners of Wolfram & Hart had unleashed an entire army of darkness upon Los Angeles. Things had settled down in the years since, but it had left a permanent mark upon the Golden State. Weirdness that had once been a signature of Sunnydale alone could now be found anywhere from Eureka to San Diego. Xander found that oddly comforting. 

It had been almost a year since he had taken up residence in this deceptively generic suburb. The house had been purchased by his uncle, who had barely even finished moving in before dropping dead from a stroke. More than one member of the Harris clan had perished in the implosion of Sunnydale, and Xander had somehow found himself named next of kin. He had never expected any of his relatives to leave behind anything but yawning debt, so it was quite the surprise to learn that he was inheriting an entire house and enough money to actually keep the taxes on it paid for the next several years. Sure, it was a supremely boring house, and he was pretty sure that it had been built over the ashes of a previous residence that had been incinerated by a wildfire, but he wasn’t complaining. 

It was late in the afternoon and he had the night off, which meant he was settling in for a thrilling evening of video games. That is, until he was rudely interrupted by pounding on the front door.

Angel and Spike were crowded under a blanket, smoldering a bit. There were handcuffs on the latter. Gunn stood a few feet behind them.

“What the hell are you doing here?” This was the first time Xander had found himself face-to-face with either of the vampires in years. 

“I tried calling you four times,” Angel replied. “Hurry up and invite us in, will you?”

Xander let out a long-suffering sigh at the request, clearly contemplating the merits of simply slamming the door in their dumb beautiful faces. But he suspected that he wasn’t getting out of this that easily. “Fine, fine. I invite you in.” He stepped aside, allowing the two vampires to hurry through the doorway, with Gunn following behind at a more reasonable pace. 

“Nice place you got here,” Spike said as he made his way into the living room, already inspecting Xander’s collection of video games and DVDs. 

“Thanks. Mind telling me why I’ve been honored with this visit?” Xander replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Spike lost his soul. I need you to keep an eye on him while we try to figure out how to get it back,” Angel explained succinctly.

Well. That was certainly a situation. “How did that happen? I thought that Spike didn’t, you know, have the no-whoopie clause in the whole soul contract.” Not that he’d put a lot of thought into that or anything. Xander looked from one vampire to the other in search of an explanation. 

“He sacrificed it. To stop an apocalypse,” Gunn explained. “It was a big bad mojo situation. You know how that is.” Fair enough. “It was meant to unleash Angelus. So we’re lucky, in a way.” Angel’s sour face suggested that he didn’t consider himself highly fortunate.

“Okay. And what made you think that I’d be up for vamp-sitting duty?”

“It was Buffy’s idea,” Angel stated plainly. 

Xander blinked. That changed things.

“Fine.”

Angel appeared surprised that such a simple statement could make Xander stop protesting so easily. Xander looked about the house, assessing his options. “This house doesn’t have a basement. We can put blackout curtains in the living room, I guess. That wall should be strong enough to anchor the chains… I’ll have to make a trip to the hardware store, though. I’m not exactly prepped to chain up demons, you know. My sex life hasn’t been that exciting in a long time.”

“Chains? Really? You don’t trust me after all these years? I’m wounded, Harris.” 

Angel shot Spike an annoyed look. “I’ll keep an eye on him while you get whatever you need.”

Xander went to the front hallway to retrieve his keys, and Gunn followed. “I’ll go with you,” Gunn volunteered, and Xander simply nodded in concession. 

It wasn’t until Xander had driven several blocks away from the house that Gunn spoke again. “You’re really okay with all this?”

That was a really good question. And Gunn had good reason for asking it. After all, he had been a firsthand witness to Xander and Spike’s initial reunion in Los Angeles, a year after Sunnydale had been destroyed and Spike had been presumed dust. It had been Dawn and Xander that had been responsible for ensuring that Gunn hadn’t died from blood loss when a legion of demons had flooded into the city; while Buffy and a whole damn army of Slayers fought to contain the situation, the three non-superpowered humans ended up running triage together. It was sure as hell an interesting way for Xander and Gunn to actually meet each other for the first time. Xander had still been filled with substantial resentment towards Angel’s entire team for their choice to take jobs at Wolfram & Hart in the first place, but he and Gunn had hit it off well enough that it was difficult for him to begrudge the other man for any role he may have had in Angel’s mess--they’d bonded well enough to stay in contact with one another ever since, even if they didn’t talk very often. 

It had been during a lull in the chaos that Spike had temporarily run out of demons to punch and had burst into the building that they had turned into a makeshift first aid station for Slayers, and he and Xander had actually set eyes on one another for the first time since Spike had been re-corporealized, and Xander had practically leapt into the bleached wonder’s arms when they greeted each other; the hug was not something that Xander would have described as manly, and lasted for longer than he would have described as strictly platonic. He hadn’t even objected to Spike burying his nose against his neck and _sniffing_ him. Xander’s satisfaction at being reunited with a fallen comrade in arms that he had once believed truly dead and gone was palpable and overwhelming in spite of their past differences. He was still mourning Anya; having Spike back was a kind of comfort. And, just maybe, Xander may have had the fleeting thought ‘ _Is this the part when we’re supposed to kiss?_ ’, but, thankfully, that had been the moment that Dawn had entered the room and let out a squeal of joy as she spotted the vampire, and Xander and Spike had a good excuse to suddenly jolt to their senses and jump apart from one another, and then Dawn had been giving Spike a crushing hug of her own, and Xander had found himself awkwardly acknowledging the fact that Gunn had witnessed the entire reunion, and from that point onward Xander was unable to shake the feeling that Gunn was trying to parse the exact nature of his relationship with the blond vampire. 

The problem was, Xander didn’t actually know what the nature of their relationship was either. 

They hadn’t even seen one another in the years since then. When Xander had returned to California, he had actually been tempted to drive down to LA just to visit Spike, but ultimately decided to wait until he had a good excuse for the trip. Well, apparently he didn’t have to keep waiting for an excuse to hang out with Spike. 

“Yeah, it’s fine. I don’t mind having him around.”

“Even without the soul?” Gunn asked.

“That makes it easier. None of the, y’know, complicated feeling stuff. Without the soul he’s just another demon, so you don’t have to worry about me trying to kiss him.”

* * *

The next afternoon, Xander sat next to Spike on the couch watching television, and it felt so much the same as the time they had been forced to cohabitate in the basement. It had been years since Xander had left his parent’s house for good, and sometimes Xander hardly felt like the same person he had been back then. After all Spike had been through, gaining a soul and being dusted in Sunnydale and then becoming a ghost and then being recorporialized and then learning how to be a hero for the greater good and then losing the soul, it seemed like he shouldn’t be the same person anymore either. Yet here they were, debating the merits of comic book movie adaptations.

“Why do you gotta keep me chained up all the time? Shouldn’t we be past that by now?” Spike asked, raising his wrists to let the chains rattle a bit for effect.

“Nuh-uh, no way. Not when your digital muzzle is gone for good.”

“What if I promised to only eat bad guys? You know, serial killers, pedophiles, real scumbags.”

“You mean you want to pull a ‘ _Dexter_ ’?” Xander replied, raising an eyebrow in a manner that he hoped conveyed enough biting skepticism to make Giles proud. “Why should I believe you? Why would you even do that?” A realization struck him. “Hey, this isn’t some ploy to try and woo Buffy, is it?”

Spike actually looked taken aback by the question for a moment. “No! Fuck, no, that’s not what this is about.” He could obviously tell that Xander wouldn’t drop the subject without further explanation. “Listen… I’ve moved on, okay. She’s never gonna see me that way, and I’m not going to waste my un-life pining like Peaches.” The vampire shifted in his seat, angling himself towards Xander to more comfortably face one another as they spoke. “I may not have a soul anymore--and between you and me, I don’t think they’re going to have much luck getting it back. And I’m not just saying that because I don’t bloody well want it. But that don’t mean I don’t have memories of when it was there. Doesn’t mean I’m going to go on some stupid world-ending rampage like Angelus.” He paused. “I’m not sure what it means, yet. I’m still figuring that out. But I think it means that I’m ready to move on to something new.”

Xander didn’t make any efforts to mask the suspicion with which he regarded the other man, but he figured he could at least try and figure out what deranged logic Spike was onto. “So, what, you’re saying I should trust you now just because you _remember_ what it was like to have a soul?”

“I’m saying that when I had a soul, I spent lots of time lurking ‘round Wolfram & Hart. Plenty of their clients are human, y’know. Saw the stuff they get up to. And I remember being disgusted by it. They got souls and they were up to twisted business that was more wicked than anything I dreamed up even in the Scourge of Europe days. So I figure that if I was to snack on a few of them, I’d actually be doing you white hats a favor.” 

A sharp, derisive laugh escaped Xander. “We don’t need your favors, Spike.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re too _good_ for my help, I get it. Even after everything I’ve done for you lot.” An exaggerated roll of his eyes. “‘Sides, there’s more to it than that. I want to live up to my full potential, so to speak. Be the baddest version of me that I can be, you feel me? Angelus is the one who got off on preying on the innocent, all that profaning against everything virtuous. Between you and me, I think all the Catholicism really did a number on his head. Frankly, I never saw the appeal of it the way that he did. Anyone can murder a baby, you know? It’s not that impressive. There’s no sport in it. But hunting demons and the biggest bads that mankind has to offer? That takes skill. Takes panache. To be the thing monsters have nightmares about.”

In that moment, Xander almost believed Spike’s conviction to be this new version of himself, though he wasn’t ready to admit it. “I need to get ready for work,” he announced, standing and heading towards the stairs. 

“It’s six PM.”

“I’m a bartender. My shift starts at seven.” Xander disappeared into his bedroom, cutting the conversation short. 

He returned about ten minutes later, clad in jeans and Hawaiian shirt. He seated himself across the room from Spike and began pulling on his sneakers. 

“I thought you were doing the construction thing,” Spike remarked.

“Hm?” Xander had to tilt his head to be able to see the other man due to the loss of his eye. “Oh, haven’t done that since Sunnydale imploded.”

“Do you miss it?” It actually sounded like Spike was trying to make conversation. Like a normal person. 

“Sometimes. I’ve been working on the house, though.” He gestured in the direction of the half-renovated kitchen. 

“I noticed. I like the paint job.”

“Thanks.” Xander finished tying his shoes and stood, moving to gather his keys and wallet. “I like the place I’m working now, though. The tips are good.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet, now that your pants actually fit.” He was looking pointedly at Xander’s ass.

Xander let out a half laugh. “I’ll let Buffy know you approve, she’s the one who picked them out.” He opened the door to leave, and paused halfway out. “I’ll be back around 2:30. I’ll bring you some blood.”

* * *

“You conveniently forgot to mention that it’s a demon bar you’re working at,” Spike observed as Xander handed him the microwaved mug of blood.

Damn, Xander should have anticipated that Spike would be able to tell from smell alone the moment that he got home from work.

“This place is classy, not like those dumps you hung around in Sunnydale. And like I said, the tips are good.”

“Yeah, because you look like a Lunchable.”

“Aw, you still think I’m edible. I’m touched.”

* * *

Spike made a daily habit of asking Xander to remove the chains, and every day, Xander refused him. Thankfully, Spike didn’t push the matter to the point of annoyance. In fact, Xander was surprised that he wasn’t a completely terrible houseguest. In fact, Xander actually found himself appreciating the company. Buffy, Dawn, and Giles had visited twice since he moved in, for nearly a month in the summer and two weeks in December. Willow was able to theoretically drop in whenever the whim struck her, but these days it seemed like she wasn’t even in this dimension half the time, which translated to Xander expecting visits from her every other month. He hated to admit it, but he was lonely. Having another member of the Sunnydale gang around was comforting even if that person was Spike, apparently. 

Xander actually found himself spending more time in his living room than he used to. In the early afternoon, before he had to work, they played video games or watched movies. When Xander returned home in the middle of the night, he liked taking some time to unwind before he had to get ready for bed, and would sit on the sofa beside Spike watching television. He had missed having someone to join him in nitpicking the latest slasher movie or catching up on episodes of _Torchwood._

One afternoon, about a week and a half after Spike’s arrival, Xander found him with a scrapbook open in his lap. It had been Dawn’s idea to make those; the Scoobies had all lost most of their personal possessions when Sunnydale was destroyed, photographs included, but thankfully Willow had a good selection of pictures backed up online, which they had combined with Giles’ collection to create the original scrapbooks. He and Dawn picked up the hobby after that, and at least once a year they would bust out the construction paper and glitter glue to add on to their scrapbooks. It contained photos Xander had taken in Africa alongside the ones from the girls’ travels all over the world, the Scoobies reunited in England for the first official meeting of the new Watcher’s Council, Dawn’s graduation, and dozens of more mundane events from the years since they’d first left California. 

Xander was surprised to see Spike carefully turning the pages and taking in each photograph one at a time. But, at second thought, it really wasn’t that surprising. There were plenty of photos of Buffy in there, for one thing. Maybe the first pictures of her that Spike had seen since Sunnydale. 

He crossed the room to sit on the sofa right next to Spike--he had stopped worrying about the vampire trying to strangle him with his chains or lean in to get a quick bite; Spike hadn’t actually attempted it since his arrival even though he had multiple opportunities--and he leaned in to see which pages of the book were open. It was a collection of photos from one of Dawn’s birthdays. There was one picture where he and Willow were on either side of Dawn as she opened presents; Buffy and Dawn dancing together; everyone gathered around the cake as Dawn blew out the candles. As Xander looked over the pictures, he suddenly remembered the birthday card that Spike had sent to Dawn, and how she had grinned when she opened it and read the inscription. He had actually written a _poem_ for her, a little limerick that she was still quoting two months later.

Spike pointed to where Willow stood next to her date in one of the photos. “Who’s that?”

“Oh, that’s Sarah. She and Willow dated for a couple months, but that was almost two years ago.”

“What happened to Kennedy?”

“They broke up. It wasn’t, y’know, messy or anything. I think the magic stuff just got too weird for her. She was still in Brazil, last I heard.”

Spike nodded in understanding. Magic was bizarre and messy and something that even soulless vampires old enough to remember the Industrial Revolution didn’t scoff at, and Willow was still trying to understand it all and how she fit into everything. After Sunnydale, her path of personal growth and recovery was a strange one, and even Xander had to admit that he was weirded out when Willow talked about spending weeks at a time in another plane of reality or telepathically communicating with an astral multidimensional entity. To make matters weirder, the spell that Willow had performed to activate thousands of Slayers was the sort of thing that attracted all sorts of attention. It seemed like supernatural beings all over the world (and plenty that weren’t from this world at all) were suddenly aware that Willow was growing into one of the most powerful witches to ever live, which made her a very popular person. There were people who wanted her to join their covens, or to become her mentor, or to be mentored by her; people who sought to gain influence over her in general; people who saw her as a threat to be destroyed. Xander tried to be as supportive as possible while Willow dealt with all of that, but even as her lifelong best friend he had to concede that he’d never be able to fully understand the witchy business. 

“What about you?” 

“Huh?”

“You been seeing anyone? Since… you know…” Spike suddenly looked awkward. Even without the soul, it was obvious that he missed Anya. Xander felt the familiar ache in his chest at the reminder of his loss, but he wasn’t upset that Spike brought it up. The opposite, in fact. He appreciated knowing that other people still held her in their memories.

“I’ve been on dates, yeah. Some of them even turned out to not be demons.” A dry chuckle. “The messed up part is that the dates with humans were actually worse.” After a moment, he added, “Simon was alright. We went on like three dates before I scared him off.” 

“Hold on. Gotta unpack a few things there.” Spike held up a hand to indicate for Xander to stop talking, the chains at his wrists rattling. “You’re finally dating blokes?”

“Yes, Spike. I’m bisexual. Officially, openly bisexual.”

“I was starting to think that you lot didn’t actually know that was an option.”

“Ha, ha. Well for your information, Buffy’s bi too. We’re both bi.”

“Thank fuck, I dunno how much longer I could have handled all that repression.”

* * *

The next afternoon, Xander got a phone call from Angel. He and Gunn had been following up on every lead they could hunt down, trying to find a way to get Spike’s soul back. Apparently the prognosis was looking grim. 

Xander made a joke about how he’d have to stake Spike if they didn’t find a solution soon.

But after the phone call ended and the line went silent, he was left feeling that the words were hollow.

* * *

It was half an hour after sunset and the last traces of purple had faded from the sky. Xander’s shift started soon. 

Spike hadn’t seen the other man at all that day; Xander had been upstairs most of the day, only visiting the kitchen once. 

Xander finally entered the living room. “Good morning, Sunshine,” Spike greeted. Xander didn’t respond. He just stood there for a while, looking at Spike as though he was trying to discern something. Spike met his gaze, arching an eyebrow but not saying anything further. 

Finally, Xander seemed to come to a decision, and stepped forward to place a piece of paper on the table in front of Spike. It was a map of Santa Carla that he had printed out, with a building circled. 

“The Initiative has been getting more active in the last couple years. Willow and I try to keep tabs on them. There’s a squad of six soldiers that’s come into town recently. They’re operating out of an old Blockbuster Video.” He pointed at the map. “It’s in a big parking lot next to an abandoned K-Mart. So the area’s a ghost town.” Xander produced another piece of paper and laid it out next to the first; it was a printout of the building’s blueprints and it had the surveillance cameras marked. 

Xander produced a key from his pocket, and began to unlock the chains at Spike’s ankles. “If you even _nibble_ an innocent person, I will personally make you _wish_ that you were the contents of an ashtray, pal.” Spike didn’t even try to quip back, he just sat in stunned silence as he watched Xander uncuff his wrists, as if he thought that any wrong move would cause Xander to realize the stupidity of what he was doing and suddenly change his mind. 

The metal chains dropped to the floor with a clatter.

Xander turned and exited out the front door. 

Thirty seconds later, Spike heard the car engine start. Xander drove to work.

* * *

It was a long shift that night; the bar stayed open until an hour before dawn due to the nature of its clientele, and Xander was scheduled to stay after close to count up the till and finish washing the dishes. He didn’t arrive home until after 7am.

And found Spike reclined on the sofa watching television. 

The chains were nowhere to be seen; he must have been offended by the sight of them after his weeks of confinement.

Xander was hardly able to take his eye off of Spike as he hung up his jacket by the door and then kicked off his sneakers. 

“I thought you’d be halfway to Vegas by now.”

Spike shrugged, and gestured at a box of donuts sitting on the coffee table. It was from the local bakery down by the beach; Xander knew that they opened before sunrise, but Spike would have had to rush in order to make it back to the house in time. Xander’s base instincts won over and he was grabbing a chocolate donut without waiting for further explanation.

“Free place to stay, nice and sunproof.” Spike gestured about the dimly-lit living room. He then levelled his gaze at Xander. “And I guess I’m curious about your little change of heart.”

Xander paused, mouth full of donut. Slowly finished chewing. 

“How was your night?” he asked. 

The real question went unspoken, but Spike understood. He smirked, and the smirk soon turned to a smug grin. “Best I’ve had in years. Don’t know if they’re still juicing up those soldier boys, but they tasted _fantastic._ ”

“Spare me the details, please,” Xander immediately interrupted, half-eaten donut in hand, scrunching up his nose.

“What, you can serve up the meal but you don’t want to hear about it?” Spike clearly wanted to interrogate Xander about his motives, but ultimately decided not to push the matter, at least not for the time being. Xander had been working all night and his weariness was obvious on his features; the conversation could wait until later. “Alright, alright, don’t wanna ruin your appetite. Finish eating and get some sleep, you look like you’re about to crash.”

“Thanks,” Xander replied, eyeing his companion wearily. 

* * *

It was Xander’s night off, and he spent most of the afternoon running errands. He wasn’t intentionally avoiding Spike, but it was nice to have an excuse all the same. 

He had awoken that afternoon to find that not only had Spike actually cleaned up his own towels after showering, but he had done laundry without destroying anything in the process. 

Xander returned home with groceries late in the afternoon. Spike couldn’t help him bring them inside due to the sunlight, but he began putting cans away in the pantry without being asked. When they were finished emptying the bags, Xander leaned against the counter and faced the other man.

“So… I heard about these demons nesting in a cave down by the beach. Wanna help me clear them out? Y’know, some slayage for old time’s sake?”

Spike chuckled. “Are you asking me on a date, Harris?”

It was not a date, Xander insisted. He maintained that firmly. The drive up the coast was uneventful, and once they made the hike to the cave it wasn’t difficult for Spike to sniff out the demons. They worked together surprisingly well, Xander decided; once the weapons started swinging it didn’t feel much different from the nights back in Sunnydale when Spike still had a chip in his head. That is, until they were the only ones left standing in the dank cave, the demons reduced to gooey bits at their feet, and Xander felt the familiar high of adrenaline with no more demons left to take it out on, and then there suddenly wasn’t any distance left between them because Xander’s lips were pressed against Spike’s and his fingers were grasping at that dumb overgelled platinum hair and his axe was dropping onto the muddy ground with a dull thump.

Okay, maybe it was a date.

Xander let out an annoyed sound of protest as he felt his back pressed against the rough, damp wall of the cave, and mustered all of his strength in an attempt to reverse their positions. Spike let out a low chuckle against his lips and compliantly allowed Xander to pin him against the rocks; the sound had a heady effect on Xander, making him realize just how far gone he was in that moment, with a hand shoved up the front of Spike’s shirt and Spike’s thigh pressed between his legs. He let his forehead rest against the vampire’s, trying to steady his breath.

“Hey, not that I’m complaining, but do ya think we could take this somewhere that doesn’t smell like demon guts? I mean, I know you’re probably into the whole dank cave thing, but if we’re finally doing this I want there to be a bed involved.”

* * *

They somehow managed to return to Xander’s house without getting pulled over for speeding, and then there was very little coherent conversation for the rest of the night, except perhaps for when Xander had firmly insisted “ _no biting”_ , and Spike had agreed to the condition without argument.

And in the following days Xander kept expecting an interrogation that never came. Spike had made it clear that he sought further explanation of Xander’s motives in facilitating the deaths of the Initiative soldiers, but it seemed that he was willing to wait for Xander to explain himself in his own time. He wasn’t sure if Spike was just allowing the matter to rest because he was enjoying all of the casual sex that was presently occuring; but, hey, whatever Spike’s reasons were for dropping the subject, Xander wasn’t complaining. 

Because damn, was it satisfying to finally get to bend Spike over. And do shots off of his abs. And a dozen other things that Xander had low-key been fantasizing about for years but had been too stubborn to admit. 

“Oh God, I’m twisted,” Xander had bemoaned on the second night, sometime after having specifically requested mid-coitus for Spike to remain fanged out for the duration. He carded fingers through his own sweat-dampened hair as he stretched out on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah, you’re a real headcase. It’s hot,” Spike replied nonchalantly. He was seated across the room, having just returned from a nude stroll to the kitchen with a teacup full of blood in hand. He was stirring it with a biscotti. “Growing up on the Hellmouth must have done a real number on your noggin. Bet you got complexes and disorders the shrinks have never even heard of.”

Xander grinned at that. Then he was laughing, a deep, full-chest laugh that left his eyes watering. “Are you suggesting that almost getting eaten by a praying mantis lady when I was sixteen may have given me trauma?” He snickered at his own words for a few moments, before breaking into full laughter again.

Spike let out a chuckle of his own and then gave an amused shake of his head. “You sound like a bloody hyena.”

Xander blinked. Then he was laughing again, fully aware of how unhinged he sounded.

“Hell, you might be as batty as Dru.”

It took some effort, but Xander managed the willpower to compose himself enough to speak. “No, that’s the-- _ha_ \--that’s the thing… Got possessed by a hyena primal two weeks later… It didn’t last very long but I got stuck with all those memories of what it _felt like_ , y’know?” He tapped two fingers against the side of his head. “Puberty was rough enough, Hellmouth had to top it off with knowing what it was like to want to _hunt_ and _feed_ and having to consider myself lucky that I only know what live pig tastes like and not raw high school principal.” He punctuated the words with a grimace.

Spike looked delighted by this revelation. “No shit?” he replied, grinning. “Now that you bring it up, Buffy mentioned that once. She said you didn’t remember any of it, though.”

Xander looked sheepish. “Yeah… not my finest moment. I was a dumb teenager. I’m not gonna claim that I handled the situation well.” His apparent displeasure at the memory only seemed to increase Spike’s satisfaction

“I underestimated you, Harris.” After a moment of consideration, he looked pointedly at Xander’s crotch. “In more ways than one.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Nah, really. Used to think that you Scoobies couldn’t understand real darkness. Not like me, not like the Slayer. But Red proved me real wrong on that account, didn’t she? I didn’t see it right in front of my damn face.” He threw his head back and finished off the contents of his cup, then moved to sit at the edge of the bed. His eyes ran over Xander’s features, looking thoughtful. “Didn’t see it because you two were born and raised right there on the maw of the abyss. It’s part of you. Weaved itself into your DNA like radiation. Bet I could even taste it, now that you’re not there anymore, not surrounded by all that noise.”

Xander rolled onto his side to face Spike as the other man spoke, propping himself up on an elbow. “Normally, I’d tell you that you’re full of shit,” he responded. “But it has been weird. Being out of Sunnydale. Knowing that I can never go back home even if I wanted to.” And what did that say about him, that he still considered _the Hellmouth_ to be ‘home’? “I was always the normal guy in the group, y’know, but the moment I left there, suddenly I had people asking ‘hey what’s the deal with the eyepatch’ and I couldn’t exactly say ‘oh, just got my eye gouged out by a sociopathic preacher guy who was working for the ancient essence of evil itself’.”

Spike let out a laugh. “I hadn’t even considered that.”

Xander gave a self-deprecating chuckle of his own. “And I haven’t had loads of luck with the social life in general. Back in Sunnyhell, everyone was used to ignoring a certain degree of bizarre. The guys at the construction company didn’t ask too many questions when I showed up with odd bruises or some ectoplasm on my sleeve. But when I was in England, I couldn’t get more than half an hour into a date without slipping up and saying something that freaked them out.”

“Good thing you accepted your inevitable fate as a demon fucker.”

* * *

As Xander was preparing himself a sandwich the following afternoon, wearing only his boxers and a tank top, Spike idly remarked that he was curious how Buffy would react if she knew about this new development in their relationship.

Xander chuckled as he deposited the peanut butter-covered knife in the sink. “She said that she’s been expecting this for years, and that if I’m going to be banging a demon then she’s relieved that it’s a demon she knows.”

“Wait, you told her already?”

“Yeah, I called her around 8am. Eight hour time difference, you know. You were asleep.”

“... Oh. Well.” Spike appeared to still be processing the news. He actually looked a bit relieved, even if he was apparently trying to hide it. Xander found it strangely endearing, and took a bite of his sandwich as he watched Spike minutely readjust an X-Wing model on the shelf as though it was suddenly of immense interest to him. “Startin’ to wonder if I should feel like we’ve been set-up…” Spike mused.

Xander slowly chewed his sandwich as he considered the question. “Hm. Probably not. But I wouldn’t entirely rule it out.”

* * *

It was two weeks after they started sleeping together that Spike waltzed into Xander’s workplace in the middle of his shift. Xander looked remarkably suited for the establishment in his Hawaiian shirt and eyepatch; there was a large fish tank behind him and an assortment of gaudy tiki glasses on the bar. The increase in demon activity throughout California had led to a boom in business for the bar several years back, and the owner took that as opportunity to splurge on decor, which meant it looked like a kitschy surfer-themed mess. 

Xander was surprised to see the familiar figure approaching the bar, but he realized that he should have anticipated it sooner or later. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I was feeling peckish.” Spike strode over to a barstool, seating himself across the counter from Xander with a flourish of his leather coat. He reached for the laminated menu listing mixed drinks and Happy Hour specials, eying it curiously.

“You should try the tacos. They have mango salsa,” Xander suggested, already filling a glass with blood and placing it on the counter in front of Spike. 

“Huh. I wasn’t expecting this place to have actual food.”

“Yeah, and it’s pretty decent too.”

A demon with red scales and a set of horns that had somehow been covered by a hair net poked his head out of the kitchen. “Is this the boyfriend?” he asked, looking pointedly from Xander to Spike and back again. 

Introductions were made. The demon disappeared back into the kitchen. 

“Boyfriend, huh?” Spike repeated, raising an eyebrow and barely holding back a smirk.

“Yeah, well. Everyone could smell it when we hooked up, so there wasn’t much point in trying to hide it.”

Spike appeared incredibly pleased by this information; there was practically a palpable aura of smugness. 

“I didn’t realize that it meant that much to you, our relationship status being public knowledge,” Xander mused.

“What can I say? Love the thought of other demons getting all jealous that I bagged the Slayer’s boy all for myself.”

The statement flattered Xander more than he anticipated, but the last few words caused him to let out an awkward chuckle. He attempted to be subtle as he glanced around the bar, making sure that no one had been paying much attention to their conversation. Spike picked up on Xander’s concerns over the turn the conversation had taken, and dropped the subject, but he had a look in his eyes that suggested that he would expect a full explanation the moment that they had some privacy.

Forty-five minutes after Spike’s arrival, Xander was able to clock off for his lunch break. Spike met him out behind the building, and Xander immediately began following the sidewalks down to the beach. It was only a couple blocks away, and after less than ten minutes of walking they stood in the sand looking out at the ocean. The waves were high tonight, the sort of waves that would have brought out the surfers if it wasn’t nearly midnight. Xander looked around as though confirming that there was no one else on the beach before he began to speak.

“So… here’s the thing,” he began, flashing a nervous grin. “The guys at the bar… I may have told them that Buffy and I had this big falling out.” 

“But you haven’t.”

“No. Obviously not.” A chuckle. “But it helped get them to trust me.”

“Right.” Spike’s expression made it clear that he was trying to work out how this piece fit into a puzzle; that he had been suspicious of Xander’s choice in occupation ever since his arrival.

Xander drew in a deep breath of brine-scented air, and seemed to be mulling over his next words. “I’m good at my job, you know? And demons, when they drink, they get chatty, just like humans do. I hear all sorts of things.”

“And who else hears those things?” Spike asked pointedly.

“Head of the new Watcher’s Council. What she does with the information, that’s up to her.”

Spike took a moment to consider the things that Xander had just revealed to him. “And the soldier boys I killed? Does she know about that too?”

“No. Figured there was no reason to get the Council involved.”

“But why? What did the Initiative do to get back on your shit-list? Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

Xander sighed. Looked about once more to confirm that there was still no one else in sight on the beach. The crash of the waves was incredibly loud that evening, and it helped reassure Xander that their conversation couldn’t be overheard even by prying demon ears. 

“They had Buffy under surveillance for years, you know that? Once they learned that the Slayer exists, what she’s capable of, they saw her as a threat. The g-men don’t like someone having that kind of power, not if they can’t control them. But since she always had her hands full protecting everyone’s butts from the forces of evil, they were willing to let her do her own thing.” Xander combed his fingers through his hair, brushing it back from his face; it had gotten mussed by the wind coming off the ocean. “When Willow did the spell to activate the potential Slayers, we tried to keep it on the down-low, but it wasn’t long before the Initiative noticed all those extra superpowered teenage girls running around. They reached out to the Council, basically tried to buy it out, and when that didn’t work, they started trying to recruit Slayers directly. A couple Slayers took their offer. A couple Slayers died working for them.”

Spike gave a shrug. “Slayers die working for the Council. Slayers die working solo.” 

“That they do. Not gonna argue that,” Xander conceded. “It’s _how_ they died that I’m concerned about.”

Spike considered the words for a moment. “You think the Initiative is getting up to their mad science shit again? Doing experiments on them?”

“What’s a better weapon than a chipped vampire, Spike?”

“... A chipped Slayer.”

“Bingo.”

“You really think they’re doing that?”

“I’d be shocked if they _weren’t._ Remember what they did to Riley? But Buffy doesn’t believe me; she wants to give them the benefit of the doubt. Willow agrees with me, though. She’s been going through their files, anything she can get her hands on, but they’re not making it easy for her.” Xander closed his eyes for a moment, breathed deeply as though gathering his thoughts. “The day I let you go after those guys… We had just gotten news of another Slayer dying while working for the Initiative, under shady circumstances. They were real dodgy when the Council tried to press for details. I was pissed.”

“So you decided to take it on yourself to start fighting the Initiative directly? That’s pretty ballsy. Possibly suicidal. Not that I’m complaining; the whole morally grey thing is a good look on you. Goes with the eyepatch.”

“It may have been a teensy bit impulsive,” Xander conceded. “But I just… Buffy deals with so much, you know? I thought that having thousands of Slayers around would lighten her load, and I guess it did in some ways, but now the younger Slayers expect her to be a _leader_ , and there’s demons from all sorts of crazy hell dimensions showing up to harass her because she’s _infamous_ now, and if there’s one thing that I can do to help take some small burden off of her, it’s deal with the _human_ threats. We’ve lost too many people. And I may just be normal human guy, but that’s not going to stop me from doing everything in my power to protect Buffy and all the other Slayers.”

Spike was staring at him. And then Spike was kissing him. It caught Xander by surprise, but he relaxed into it after a moment, and was damn glad that he did because wow Spike was good at kissing. His fingers curled in the front of Spike’s shirt, and Spike’s fingers were in his hair, and this was somehow different from all of the times over the past two weeks that they had kissed when the only thing on either of their minds was _sex_. 

“... _Wow._ ” Xander was left breathless, his heels digging into the sand, hands clutching at Spike as though he was afraid he’d lose his balance if he let go. Spike took note of Xander’s frazzled state and looked smug about it, slipping an arm around Xander’s waist. 

“You really make a vamp wanna take a bite out of you when you get all chivalrous,” Spike remarked, his lips much closer to Xander’s carotid than he should have been comfortable with, but Xander felt remarkably unconcerned about it. “And Buffy would definitely kick your ass if she heard you, which is also really doing something for me.”

Xander let out a sharp laugh at that. “Wow, you really know how to woo a guy.” He awkwardly shifted to check his watch. “I’m gonna have to get back to work soon…” He wasn’t making any effort to move, however.

“You can be late,” Spike replied, beginning to trail wet kisses over Xander’s throat, tugging aside the collar of his shirt to get better access and drawing a low groan from Xander. “Let ‘em think you’ve spent your whole break snogging your vampire boyfriend.” 

He made a good point, Xander decided.

* * *

Xander routinely wondered if he would end up regretting his decision to confide in Spike. Or, well, any of his decisions pertaining to the vampire. But he didn’t. It was surprising how much lighter he felt now that he had someone to confide in. He was beginning to appreciate why Buffy had been able to share secrets with a soulless demon, and felt like he owed her another apology on that matter. 

He found himself pleasantly surprised by Spike’s apparent commitment to his vow not to harm innocent people. His diet primarily consisted of bagged blood; he’d been drinking it for long enough that he didn’t seem inconvenienced by the idea of not feeding directly from a vein. One evening when Xander got home from work he found a bag full of small cameras and other surveillance equipment on the dining room table. When questioned about it, Spike explained that it was intended for reconnaissance on a Wolfram & Hart client who lived 50 miles from Santa Carla. Xander didn’t ask any more questions about it. 

Angel periodically left voicemails to update Xander on the ongoing search for a solution to Spike’s missing soul, except there wasn’t much to update him on; wherever Spike’s soul was trapped, it wasn’t going to be easily located. The updates became increasingly sporadic, and Xander lost interest in even bothering to respond to Angel’s voicemails after the first month. Nearly two months after Xander had released Spike from his captivity, Angel arrived on his doorstep once more. The conversation primarily consisted of Spike taunting the other vampire from across the threshold--Xander had already uninvited Angel from the residence; all of the years around Willow had taught him how to do that much magic at the very least. Angel was not pleased that Spike was being permitted to roam freely, but was willing to concede that he wouldn’t attempt to dust him unless he had proof that Spike was killing again. Even if he maintained that Spike had “seduced” Xander into making questionable decisions. 

On the evenings that Xander wasn’t working, they went out to movies, or to some hipster restaurant down by the boardwalk, or to go fight some demon nest in another town. Xander’s coworkers at the bar seemed to trust him more in light of his relationship with a vampire, which certainly made Xander’s espionage easier, though he found it awkward to constantly dodge jokes about their expectations that he would show up to work one day as a vampire himself. Spike became a regular customer at the bar, and even worked his way into a weekly poker game with some of the other regulars, which provided even more fruitful information for Xander to pass on to the Council. 

Willow was the first of the Scoobies to visit after the two started sleeping together, and though she found it strange at first, she got used to the idea of their relationship incredibly quickly--though did not spare Spike the customary threat that she would literally turn him inside-out if he harmed a hair on Xander’s head. Dawn made it well-known that she was highly supportive of the relationship, even if she had a few threats for Spike as well. Giles was colder on the subject, but he had long ago conceded that his concerns about Spike were unlikely to be heeded. 

One day, nearly six months after Spike arrived on Xander’s doorstep, Xander received a call from the Council.

* * *

A new Slayer had just been called. She was from a small town in Oregon. Though the new Watcher’s Council had been recruiting and training new Watchers, they remained incredibly overstretched; before anyone had been able to contact this girl and begin training her, she had already gotten in trouble with the law. Apparently the prospect of using her newfound abilities to settle a score with the school bully had been too great a temptation. Her arrest had involved a specially designed tranquilizer gun, and wasn’t it awfully convenient that the authorities had _that_ on hand. Less than two hours after she was arrested, her custody was transferred to Initiative agents. Xander got the phone call ten minutes later.

He didn’t waste any time getting on the road, even if Spike had to spend the first few hours of the drive in the back seat of the car underneath a blanket. 

It was one of the Initiative’s smaller facilities. Xander was grateful for that; he wasn’t sure what options would have been available if they had already taken her into one of the bases in New Mexico or Colorado; Willow had no luck getting blueprints of those locations, she just knew that they were _big_ and had the kind of security that screamed “the Geneva Convention has no authority here”. 

The rescue mission went smoothly. Remarkably so. Xander was actually impressed by Spike’s proficiency in navigating the installation and avoiding unnecessary altercations. And killing Initiative soldiers with silent and efficient precision. He really shouldn’t have been impressed by that. But it didn’t bother him. It should have bothered him.

The Slayer, Ivy, was still groggy from the sedatives, and highly suspicious of her rescuers, but Xander was able to convince her to trust them. They drove from the base to a safehouse the Council had arranged. It was just before dawn when two other Slayers arrived, taking Ivy into their protection--they’d likely be heading to the Council’s secondary headquarters in Cleveland, Xander surmised. 

By the time they returned to Santa Carla, Xander was exhausted, and slept for twelve hours straight.

When he awoke, he baked a frozen lasagna, ate the entire thing, and then dragged Spike into the bedroom to screw his brains out.

But this was somehow different from their usual (very, very good) sex. Because Xander couldn’t stop thinking about how Spike had agreed to help him rescue a _Vampire Slayer_ without hesitation, how they had been able to communicate so fluently without a single word being spoken as they navigated the hallways of the Initiative base, how all of their recent adventures in demon hunting had made Xander feel more exhilarated than he had ever since he left Sunnydale, how he _liked it_ when the guys at the bar referred to Spike as “the boyfriend”. 

And apparently Spike felt something was different too. Because when round two was finished and Xander was left laying dazed on the mattress, working to regain his breath, Spike paused in his customary task of lighting up a cigarette. “Oh, _fuck._ Oh, bloody fucking hell…” he groaned, pressing a palm to his forehead.

“What? What’s the matter?” Xander asked, brow furrowing as he sat up so that he was face to face with the other man. 

“I think I’m falling for you. I think I’m in love.”

“Oh.” It took a moment for the words to truly sink in. “ _Oh._ Oh, fuck,” Xander agreed.

* * *

In the weeks that followed, Xander was on edge. Not because of Spike’s confession; in fact, the only thing that seemed to get Xander to relax even for a short time was when Spike was kissing him. But there were many times when Xander was going out to check the mail or driving to work or doing his grocery shopping and he got the sudden, overwhelming sensation that he was being _watched_. He began to feel paranoid about their infiltration of the Initiative facility; he mentally reviewed it over and over again, and knew that they had taken extensive precautions to ensure that they couldn’t be identified--including the use of a handy device that Willow had crafted that caused both of them, as well as the car, to be invisible to surveillance technology. At least it was strangely reassuring to have a vampire around, since no one could get within a mile of the house without Spike noticing their scent.

One night, nearly three weeks later, Spike was driving Xander home after he got off his shift at 2am. (It was Xander’s car, but he had long ago conceded that it was, in theory, technically safer to allow Spike to drive at night due to his own lack of depth perception, along with Spike’s preternatural reflexes. But the latter were, in practice, predominantly used to pull maneuvers that could have given a less jaded man a heart attack.) They were only a couple blocks away from the bar when Xander noted that Spike was checking the rear-view mirror more frequently than usual. 

“Is someone following us?” Xander asked, glancing at the side mirror that was visible from his position in the passenger seat. He couldn’t see anything remarkable, but he didn’t want to turn around to check and draw attention to the endeavor. 

“Not sure yet,” Spike replied. He began to take a different route than usual, the road that followed the coastline. Before long he was pulling over at one of the scenic overlook spots just off the road, which only granted space for two or three cars to park at the edge of a hill looking out upon the ocean. The moment the engine was off, Spike was grabbing Xander by the shirt and pulling him into a kiss. He wasn’t really paying attention to the way their lips slammed together, though; Xander awkwardly tried to remain as quiet as possible since he could tell that Spike was listening for something. A moment later, Xander was able to hear the sound of another car driving past them on the road. Spike waited until the car had passed them before turning to take a look at the taillights of the vehicle as it faded into the distance. “Shit,” he muttered, letting out a sigh and sitting back in the driver’s seat while pulling a cigarette from his pocket and placing it between his lips. 

“What, did you recognize that car?” Xander pulled a lighter from his pocket, fluidly flipping it open and holding it out for Spike to light his cigarette.

“Yeah. I ate that guy’s brother.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Relax. Wolfram & Hart paid the guy to bring them human sacrifices for all sorts of shady rituals.”

“Oh. I guess that’s okay.”

* * *

Xander should have felt reassured that the ongoing suspicions that he was being watched were all related to this thug that Spike had pissed off, rather than agents of the Initiative, but his anxieties didn’t dissipate. 

Then came the call from Willow.

There was nothing particularly unusual about receiving a request to video chat on a Wednesday afternoon, but it was surprising when she requested for Spike to be present as well--not that he didn’t have a habit of butting into their calls anyway. Spike actually looked pleased when Xander informed him that his presence was being requested; as reluctant as the vampire was to admit such things, Xander could tell that he missed the old Scooby Gang almost as much as Xander did.

Once the customary pleasantries were out of the way, Willow began explaining her conundrum, rambling about unusual energy readings and ley lines and fish migration patterns and scrying the ocean--to be honest, Xander had difficulty following. But once she got around to actually requesting their assistance, well, that part made enough sense: she needed a magical doohickey to aide in sorting out her latest supernatural conundrum, and the person who was likely in possession of said item was one of the biggest hotshot vampires in Miami, so Willow had opted to recruit Spike’s assistance in sweet-talking this vamp into handing it over. 

“So… just to recap…” Xander interjected. “You need us to help you get this thing because something spooky is happening in the Bermuda Triangle.”

“W-well, I mean…” Willow stammered. “I guess you could say it that way...” she conceded.

Xander was pleased to see that his enthusiasm was shared as a grin spread over Spike’s face. They high-fived.


	4. The Zeppo: The Zequel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angel kind of ended up being used as a punching bag in this chapter but I promise that I do it out of love.

**MIAMI**

**ONE WEEK AGO**

The sign was five-foot-tall neon shaped like a heart with a stake through it. Xander was accustomed to demon bars being tucked away in dark alleys with little-to-no signage; this could have passed for a hip nightclub of the normal human variety, down to the line that wrapped around the building, though the bouncer was sporting a set of horns that betrayed the sort of establishment this was. 

Demons weren’t as much of a secret as they used to be, though plenty of humans continued to deny their existence; Xander had seen Sunnydale Syndrome in action for decades, and was fully aware of just how stubbornly people would cling to their denial of the supernatural even when mountains of evidence were piled right on their doorstep. But there were also those who were attracted to the taboo, who clammored to meet demons face-to-face out of some misguided desire to find some brooding misunderstood beast to woo, or to seek magic and power, or simply because they wanted more danger in their lives. They reminded Xander of the vampire wannabes he’d met back in High School, though at least these guys were dressed for a Miami nightclub rather than wearing capes and cheap lace and crushed velvet. Though maybe he should try to be a little less judgey, considering that he was the one who had been screwing a vampire for months.

Nah, he was going to keep judging.

“What’s with the sign? Isn’t that, like, the opposite of the kind of message you wanna send when you’re trying to sell hemoglobin shakes to the UV challenged?”

Spike tilted his head to really take in the sight of the neon sign, really taking a moment to admire it. “Normally, yeah. But back in ‘87, a Slayer died here in Miami. Vamp responsible carved out her heart and impaled it with her own stake, put it on display for a week. _Artistic genius_ , really. Bloody inspirational.”

“Thanks, I regret asking.”

With a laugh, Spike reached and began messing with the front of Xander’s shirt, ensuring it was unbuttoned the exactly correct amount, sleeves cuffed. He had already insisted on going through all of the clothes that Xander had brought with him, selecting the floral shirt that he deemed the most aesthetically pleasing. The humidity (the heavy, overbearing humidity that was nothing like what Xander was accustomed to in California) was causing Xander’s hair to become more unruly than usual; Spike reached up to comb his fingers through it and ensured that dark curls fell over Xander’s forehead in an artfully dishevelled sort of way that made Xander have to actively fight the impulse to try to brush it aside. 

“C’mon, handsome.” Spike threw an arm around Xander’s shoulders and began striding towards the entrance of the club. They bypassed the line entirely; Xander was apprehensive about this, but upon reaching the bouncer, the horned demon simply gave Spike a considering look and then granted them entrance. Xander was unsure if he had recognized Spike, or if he simply recognized that Spike was a century-and-a-half-old vampire. 

Xander had once considered his workplace in Santa Carla to be upscale, by demon bar standards. This place was something else entirely. He was suddenly glad that he had allowed Spike to be his stylist for the evening. They passed through a darkly painted hallway illuminated only by neon, which led into a large room several stories tall. There was a dancefloor at the center, overlooked by several tiers of balconies that held private booths for VIPs. It was exactly what Xander imagined a chic Miami night club to look like, all art deco and indoor palm trees and sleek modern art pieces. He couldn’t help but admire the architecture. 

“Stop gawking, you look like a tourist,” Spike teased. 

“Let a man have a moment to process, sheesh.” Xander let his gaze travel over the layout of the club once more, considering. “This place is huge, we should split up to look for her. I’ll go talk to the bartender, see if they can help point us in the right direction.” Spike nodded in agreement, and headed off toward the stairs leading up to the balconies.

Xander made his way over to the bar. It was a huge affair, black marble countertops and a wall of high-end liquor that was flanked by fancy glass jars; he was all-too-aware of the contents thereof--salamander eyes and larvae and pickled tongues and all the other goodies that demons might order in a place like this. There was a crowd around the bar and he had to stand off to the side, waiting for a space to clear so that he could try to get the bartender’s attention. 

While he was waiting, his gaze drifted over the club’s interior once more. There was a wall of mirrors behind the dance floor, which seemed like a peculiar design choice for an establishment where half the patrons had no reflections. It seemed that blue glowsticks had been freely distributed that night, since many of the dancers had them swinging from lanyards around their necks or twirling in their hands or clasped in their pinchers. The resulting effect in the mirror was striking; more than half of the individuals on the dancefloor were vampires, and their absent reflections made it appear as though blue lights floated through the air of their own accord. He watched the lights jump and swirl in time with the music in a mesmerizing dance like will-o-the-wisps. 

The trance was broken when a heavy hand clapped down on his shoulder.

“Hey, do I know you?” a gruff voice demanded. 

Xander found himself flanked by three ugly demons; in spite of all of his years of experience in the demon-hunting business, he wasn’t even sure what these guys were. 

“Uh, don’t think so, I’m new in town,” he replied, offering a smile that he hoped was congenial.

“Nah, I know who you are. Ugly shirt, eyepatch, Bruce Campbell vibes. This is the guy who hangs out with Buffy Summers. This is the Slayer’s boy,” one of the demons stated with a scowl, poking Xander roughly in the chest with a gnarled grey finger. 

Xander let out a nervous laugh, taking a step back but quickly realizing that he didn’t have any more space to move. “You got me. But that was in the past, I’m retired from the Slayin’ days.” He had put enough effort into establishing the rumors of his supposed falling-out with Buffy and the Watcher’s Council that the story had been working out for him, but these guys didn’t seem placated. He quickly glanced about the club, hoping to spot Spike, but he couldn’t see much beyond the three demons who had him cornered. There was a small switchblade tucked into Xander’s boot, but he doubted he stood much of a chance of retrieving it; he wasn’t even sure if it could do much damage to these demons. “I’m here with my boyfriend, my _vampire boyfriend_.”

“He _does_ stink of vamp,” one of them conceded, but still appeared skeptical. 

“I don’t see no fang marks on him. It can’t be that serious.” The demon in the middle suddenly had a nasty looking blade in his hand, and held the tip of it menacingly close to Xander’s throat. “Slayer killed three of my cousins, you know…”

“Hey, come on guys, we can talk this out,” Xander replied with another nervous chuckle, doing an impressive job of ignoring the very sharp knife that was only a hair’s breadth from his jugular.

They didn’t look like the verbacious type. 

“He’s right, fellas, let’s all cool our jets here,” an unfamiliar voice interrupted. They had been approached by a vibrantly green demon with red horns and a well-tailored magenta suit. He certainly didn’t look very intimidating, but Xander surmised that he must have held some kind of authority around here, since the three who had been threatening Xander only moments earlier actually looked almost _sheepish_ to be caught in the act. 

“Yeah, yeah, alright, we were just ‘boutta leave anyway,” the one with the knife grumbled, making a show of sheathing the blade and backing away from Xander. 

Xander couldn’t hold back his sigh of relief. Once the three of them had begun trudging toward the exit, he turned to face his scaly green savior. “Thanks, man.”

He was given a grin in return. “No problem. You wouldn’t happen to be Xander Harris, Sunnydale Alumnus?”

“Uh… yeah…” Xander’s apprehension was obvious.

“Well, fancy meeting you here! I’m Lorne.” 

Xander recognized the name almost immediately, and felt a notable relief settle over him; he’d heard enough about the empath demon from Spike to feel like he could probably trust him. He took Lorne’s offered hand to give it a shake. “Is this your club?” He vaguely remembered that Lorne had owned one in Los Angeles. 

“Oh, no, this place is a bit noisy for my tastes actually,” Lorne replied with a chuckle. “But I know the owner.”

“A vampire called Lucy? That’s actually who we’re looking for. Spike is around here… somewhere.”

“Mm-hm. Come on, I’ll take you to her.” Lorne offered his arm and Xander took it, glad to have someone helpful around after his little almost-getting-stabbed incident. 

Lorne led the way up two flights of stairs and to one of the private boots that was tucked into a corner. Xander felt a wave of relief as he noted that Spike had already found his way to this location; he was seated at the table across from two others that Xander assumed to also be vampires. One was a petite blonde woman in a pink suit jacket and matching shorts, and an ostentatious diamond necklace that probably cost more than Xander made in a year. The man beside her was equally short, with a chic haircut and a colorful floral suit that Xander was actually a little envious of. Spike turned to face them as they approached, and surprise crossed his features as he noticed who was walking alongside Xander.

“Holy hell, Lorne! Is this where you’ve been hiding out all these years?” Spike stood and drew the other demon into a hug, which Lorne didn’t hesitate to reciprocate, though he let out a nervous chuckle after a moment.

“Thrilled to see you, Blondie Bear, though I can’t help noticing you seem a little less soulful than I remember…” Lorne observed. Xander was impressed how quickly he had sensed that little detail. 

“Just be happy it’s not Angelus running around, buddy,” Spike replied with a shrug. 

Lorne’s expression soured at the prospect, and he gave another nervous laugh. “Well, when you put it that way…”

“Don’t worry, I’ve been making sure that he’s behaving himself,” Xander assured Lorne with a pat on his shoulder. 

Lorne’s demeanor actually brightened at that, and he looked back and forth between Xander and Spike before grinning. “So you have. Good for you kids.” The knowing tone in his voice made Xander wonder just how much information Lorne was able to sense from them, though he was fairly confident that he didn’t have to worry about spilling any major secrets unless he actually started singing. Which was not high on his agenda, given his track record with musical numbers. “If you promise he’s not reliving the ol’ William the Bloody days, I’ll take your word for it. I wouldn’t have much of a social life here in Miami if I wasn’t willing to make friends with the soulless crowd. You know, selectively.” The blonde woman gave a cheerful wave in response to that statement.

Lorne seemed to realize that introductions were in order, and gestured to the pair seated at the table. “This is our lovely host Lucy, and my wonderful tailor Mr. Fredo Harvey. It looks like you’ve already met Spike. This is Xander Harris, Hellmouth veteran and apparently Spike’s new beau.” Xander didn’t have any complaints about the introduction, just relief that Lorne didn’t namedrop the Slayer. 

Spike sat down once more, and Xander seated himself beside him. Lorne sat beside Fredo and across from Spike; he seemed genuinely pleased to see a familiar face, with or without soul. 

There was an impressive array of macarons at the center of the table alongside a bottle of white wine, and Lucy gestured at them. “Please, help yourselves.” Spike didn’t hesitate to reach for a pistachio macaron. 

As Xander bit into one of the desserts, he couldn’t help but think with some satisfaction about how envious Harmony would be of him in that moment, eating fancy french pastries with a fashionable bigshot vampire in her posh nightclub while accompanied by Spike, who had thus far been a _much_ better boyfriend to Xander than he had ever been with Harmony. Maybe that was petty of him. But, hey, he deserved to be petty every once in a while, considering all the times that Harmony had mocked him for wearing secondhand clothing or constantly getting detention from their 4th grade teacher just because he had trouble sitting still and staying quiet during Reading Time.

“Spike here was just explaining that you’re in the market for the Fenxis Orb,” Fredo stated. Xander nodded in confirmation.

“Well, I’m sorry to say that I don’t have it anymore,” Lucy replied. “Didn’t have much use for the thing. And it was kind of ugly. So I gave it to Captain Rackham, he loves collecting crap like that.”

“Right then. And where can we find this Captain Rackham?” Spike replied. 

Lucy and Fredo exchanged a look. Then they both looked towards Xander, and he was fairly certain they were focused on his eyepatch. The two vampires appeared to be barely suppressing their amusement.

“I suppose I can arrange a meeting for you,” Lucy offered with a grin. There was something mischievous in her tone, and Xander found himself looking to Lorne for reassurance that this wasn’t a terrible plan. 

The demon offered him an awkward smile. “I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.”

“You don’t sound too confident about that,” Spike pointed out.

“Ah, well, you see, his hubby isn’t very fond of me. You know how some people get testy about precognition,” Lorne explained. Xander found himself nodding at that; he had witnessed enough supernatural mishaps to understand why some people would be adverse to the prospect of someone reading their fate. 

“Alright, we’re in,” Xander stated firmly. 

Lucy offered a charming smile in response. Xander imagined that smile had been enough to lure countless men to their deaths. “Wonderful,” she replied.

After they had exchanged contact information, the conversation drifted to more casual subjects. Spike and Lorne obviously appreciated the opportunity to catch up with each other. Lorne explained that after leaving Los Angeles, he found himself aimlessly heading East until he had run out of road, and then he ended up sulking around Miami trying to drown his sorrows until the day that he crossed paths with Fredo; it wasn’t easy finding a decent tailor when you were green and scaly, and the first new suit that he crafted for Lorne had apparently been spectacular enough to be the first step in drawing Lorne from his deep depression. Lorne didn’t seem to be interested in discussing the details of what, exactly, had caused the rupture in his friendship with Angel, but Xander recalled enough from Spike’s stories of his time as a peripheral member of Team Angel to piece together that it had something to do with Angel’s feud with Wolfram & Hart and the fateful day that he had provoked them into unleashing an army of demons upon southern California--so Xander was inclined to believe that Lorne must have had extremely valid reasons for his departure. When Lorne anxiously requested that Spike and Xander make no mention of his whereabouts to anyone who might be inclined to share that information with Angel, they didn’t hesitate to promise to keep his secret safe.

Spike and the other vampires got along swimmingly. Xander was amused by the similarities between Lucy’s accent and Spike’s own, though he had long suspected that Spike’s was an affectation. Fredo had slipped him a business card for his tailoring business before the night was over. By the time they left the club, Xander had almost entirely forgotten any apprehensions he may have held about their future meeting with this Captain that Lucy spoke of.

* * *

The motel wasn’t anything fancy, but it was clean and had wifi and a continental breakfast and a decent pool, which made it notably superior to any of the places that the Harrises had stayed at in Xander’s childhood. Willow probably would have been willing to pay for something nicer, but Xander had no interest in taking advantage of her pocketbook (if it had been the Watcher’s Council covering the tab, that would have been a different story entirely). 

The meeting was arranged for nearly a week later, so he and Spike had free time to simply enjoy their vacation. 

Three days after their visit to the club, Xander and Spike were in the hotel room, halfway through a pizza that they had gotten delivered, when Spike let out an unexpected growl that caused Xander to pause to look at him mid-bite. “What’s up?” he mumbled around the pizza.

“Angel’s in town.” 

“Ugh, gross,” Xander groaned.

Sure enough, within half an hour there was a knock on the door. Spike made no effort to hide his irritation as he opened it. “What the hell do you want?” he demanded as he found himself face to face with his grandsire. 

Angel shouldered his way past Spike and into the room so that he could close the door behind him--Xander found himself irritated, not for the first time, that hotel rooms didn’t require invitations. “Willow called me. She thought that you two could use backup for this meeting you have planned.”

“Bullshit. She would have told me,” Xander replied, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest.

“... She didn’t ask me in so many words…” Angel replied, actually looking almost sheepish for a moment. “I recognized the name she gave me, so I did some research on these vamps. It’s hard to tell what’s true and what’s just rumor, but none of it is good.” 

Xander raised an eyebrow at that, and exchanged a look with Spike. As much as they would have enjoyed booting him out the door, they knew that anything that Angel considered a threat should probably be taken seriously. Spike moved to sit at the foot of the bed, apparently deciding that he wouldn’t be kicking Angel out of the room just yet. “Okay, spill,” Spike demanded.

Angel looked about the room, and opted to seat himself in the swivel chair by the desk. It squeeked as he sat down. “I’m taking this with a grain of salt, but they claim that they used to be pirates,” he explained.

“What, really?” There was a hint of excitement in Xander’s voice that made Angel scowl. 

“I haven’t found any reliable sources on that,” Angel replied in a tone that suggested he was trying to maintain his patience. “What I do know is true is that they took out at least a half dozen notorious master vamps in the turf wars that happened here in the 70s and 80s, and have killed at least one Slayer. And you’re going to be walking right into their lair.” 

“Yeah, but we’re not planning to fight them, we’re just trying to arrange a business transaction, vamp-to-vamp,” Spike responded. “Fat lotta good it’s gonna do us if you come along and they sniff out that soul of yours and decide you must be trying to screw ‘em over.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, my reputation as one of the good guys isn’t exactly pristine these days,” Angel sighed. “I have experience with this sort of thing. It’s riskier for you to go without me, whether you like it or not.”

Xander found himself suspecting that Angel had ulterior motives for his arrival, but he had to admit that the older vampire had a point. He had been feeling some misgivings about the scheduled meeting ever since discovering that the address Lucy had given them for the rendezvous was a marina. He didn’t like the idea of being taken to a secondary location, but he was too committed to helping Willow to back out now. 

“Okay Brood-Boy, you have a point,” Xander conceded. “But don’t think that you get to be in charge just because of Vampire Seniority or some crap like that. You follow _my_ lead on this one.” Spike didn’t seem to have any objections to Xander claiming authority in this situation; he actually looked smug about the prospect of Xander bossing Angel around. 

Angel clearly wanted to argue, but apparently decided that maintaining this fragile alliance was more important than his ego. “Fine,” he begrudgingly agreed. “Just don’t let it go to your head. We’ll have to keep up appearances in front of other vampires.”

* * *

Angel ended up booking a room in the same motel, though not for lack of trying to find an alternative. He didn’t say as much, but Xander was fairly certain that Angel could still hear whatever was going on in Xander and Spike’s room even though Angel’s room was all the way down the hall from theirs. Not that Xander was going to allow that to interfere with his sex life; Angel would just have to deal with whatever he heard whether he liked it or not. 

It was just after midnight and Spike had informed him that he had overheard Angel leaving the motel, presumably to go sulk on the beach or something. Which meant that they had some privacy for a while. 

Xander was in no hurry to move, however. The window of their room looked out upon the motel’s sign featuring a vibrant neon flamingo, and right in that moment with the curtains open the room was cast in a pink glow. Xander found himself taking in the sight of how the light reflected off of Spike’s platinum hair and pale skin. In moments like this he seemed so inhuman, like a statue carved from marble. The effect should have been alienating, but Xander felt entranced by it. 

It didn’t take long for Spike to notice that Xander was staring.

“What’s on your mind?” 

“I think I love you too,” Xander found himself responding, the words flowing freely before he even truly realized he was saying it. But he meant it. Because at some point in the past decade he had stopped thinking about Spike as an enemy and started thinking about him as an ally, someone that he could turn to when the entire world was literally about to get sucked into hell and rely upon to help protect the people that he loved; because somewhere along the way the people that he loved and the people that Spike loved had become the same people; because he had stopped thinking of Spike as just an ally and had started thinking of him as a partner, and he wanted it to stay that way even if it meant the occasional struggles that came with trying to build trust with a soulless demon who he, by all logic, shouldn’t have been trusting at all. But Xander had never claimed to be the logical member of the Scoobies. 

A look of surprise flashed across Spike’s features. Then he was moving to stand, crossing the room, and kissing Xander slowly. 

“I want you to bite me,” Xander breathed against Spike’s lips, and that earned an even more shocked reaction than his initial confession. 

“You’re serious?” Spike replied incredulously, drawing back just enough to look Xander in the eye. “You’re not just saying this because you want to piss off Angel, are you?”

“Not that I don’t consider that a fun bonus, but no. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple days now. Ever since we were at the club.” Xander turned and sat at the foot of the bed. “Well. A lot longer than that, really,” he admitted. 

Spike seated himself next to Xander, close enough that their knees bumped against each other. “Yeah?”

Xander nodded. “Before, when I told you not to bite me. It’s not because I didn’t want it. It’s because I kind of thought I’d want it too much.”

“I figured.”

Xander let out a short laugh. “What, really? Was it that obvious?”

“Only because I know you well enough,” Spike replied with a shrug. “Thought you’d end up addicted to it like Riley did, right?”

“Well… yeah,” Xander sighed. “I’m still worried about that, to be honest. But I guess I’ve decided that it’s worth it. Because it’s gonna drive me crazy, not knowing what it feels like. And if I get addicted to it, well, I guess that’s an addiction that I can live with.”

A grin slowly spread over Spike’s features. Xander shifted to unclasp the necklace around his throat, dropping it on the nightstand. He then grasped the collar of his shirt, tugging it aside to expose his jugular. “C’mon, loverboy. Mark me up real good so all the other dead guys know I’m spoken for.”

It was clear that Xander had chosen the exact combination of words to make something awaken inside of Spike; Xander suspected that he was struggling to keep his fangs from emerging. “Oh, no. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right,” he replied, before he was suddenly pressing Xander against the mattress and pinning his arms above his head. Xander made a cursory attempt at struggling against Spike’s grip on his wrists, but his grin betrayed the fact that he had no objections to the situation, he just enjoyed the reminder that Spike was strong enough to easily keep him in place. “I’ve been waiting an entire bloody decade to get my fangs in you…” Spike purred.

There were some things that Spike was capable of being patient and methodical about. Apparently this was one of them. He took things nice and slow, getting Xander worked up until he was practically begging for it. When Spike finally sunk fangs into his throat, Xander saw stars.

* * *

It was less than an hour after sunset that Xander arrived at the marina with the two vampires alongside him. 

For the past couple days, Angel had seemed to be avoiding Xander ever since he had set eyes on the fresh bite mark on his throat. (It probably didn’t help that Xander and Spike tended to team-up to mock him at every opportunity, and joining forces made them far more effective at it than they’d ever been individually. Xander was so proud of the jabs they’d directed at Angel that he had been tempted to write a few of them down.) The taxi ride from the motel to the marina passed in awkward silence. The collar of Xander’s shirt did little to conceal the twin puncture wounds, and Angel was making a marked effort to avoid looking in Xander’s direction as much as possible. Spike’s amusement over this state of affairs was barely concealed. 

There was a man waiting for them at the designated pier. He had short brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and friendly enough features that Xander wouldn’t have guessed that he was a vampire if he didn’t have so much experience picking up on the subtle clues. He introduced himself as Jacob Garett, and ushered them onto a waiting boat. It was small, but clearly state-of-the-art, and _fast_ ; the kind of vessel that Xander imagined would be awfully convenient for transporting things of questionable legality. 

Angel had made a few vague remarks about having developed a distaste for the ocean, and once they were on the boat he seemed to retreat into himself, doing his best to ignore his surroundings as much as possible. Xander made a mental note to question Spike about this later, but he was content to simply give Angel his space for the moment. (Later, Spike would explain that it probably had something to do with the time that Angel’s son left him imprisoned in a metal box at the bottom of the ocean for several long months, which only raised more questions than it answered.)

It wasn’t long before Xander found himself chatting with Jacob, asking questions about the boat and its controls. (He quickly learnt that he wasn’t going to get any straight answers about their destination, however.) After about forty-five minutes the two of them were cracking jokes with each other, and Xander was surprised by how quickly he had found himself on friendly terms with a vampire he had just met. 

It took a little under three hours for them to arrive. When they reached the island, it simply appeared out of nowhere all at once as though it had been concealed by a spell of some sort; Xander suspected that he wouldn’t have been able to retrace their journey even if he tried, as though magic was keeping the location of this island a guarded secret. 

Xander was thankful that the moon was nearly full that night, making it easier to see the features of the island, though he had difficulty perceiving the size of it, struggling to judge exactly how far away it was until they were nearly alongside it--it was times like this that he really missed his depth perception. Woods covered most of the island’s surface, broken up by streaks of sandbreak and interspersed with tall pine trees. There were tall hills that towered over the vegetation in spires of naked rock, which were all strangely shaped. He imagined that there would be far more seabirds flying about the island during the daytime, but there were still occasional cries of the wildlife that could be heard over the crash of the waves against the shore. 

As they drew closer to their destination, it became apparent that it wasn’t just one island, but two that sat parallel to one another with a straight between them. There was a ship anchored near the mouth of the straight, which resembled some of the military vessels that Xander had seen along the coast of California; for all he knew, it could very well have belonged to one country’s navy or another at some point in the past. He found himself studying the shape of the guns on board as they sailed past it. If it was there to be ominous, it certainly did its job. Maybe it helped that the sounds from amongst the trees seemed so much closer and louder now, coming from all sides, and occasionally there would be strange animal cries that Xander couldn’t positively identify as birds or monkeys or something else entirely. They passed a few other vessels as they made their way up the straight, at least one of which looked nothing like any boat that Xander had seen before--it was entirely possible that they had not been constructed by humans at all.

“Gosh, all this place needs is a giant skull carved into the hillside. You know, to really set the atmosphere.”

Jacob let out a deep laugh at that. “That’s not such a bad idea.”

They rounded a bend in the waterway, and lights became visible up ahead, immediately drawing Xander’s attention. There were a handful of structures built into the hillside right along the water; it reminded him of pictures he had seen of the lakes of Italy, right down to the impressive architecture. There was one large villa at the center of it all, with a few smaller buildings surrounding it, and landscaped walkways connecting them. He wished that he could have set eye upon the place in daylight so that he could see it all more clearly, but at the same time there was something that seemed oddly appropriate about seeing it at night, illuminated by moonlight with the windows glowing. There were a few open courtyards between the buildings with torches flickering around the perimeter; one of them was also adorned with flickering paper lanterns, and Xander could make out the figures of a variety of demons gathered there, a few dancing to music that could just barely be heard over the water, but most of them were most likely preoccupied with drinking and gambling. There were a few wooden docks here with a variety of boats surrounding them. In the distance, Xander could make out the shape of the masts of a large sailing ship that must have been anchored just around the bend of the waterway.

Xander let out an impressed whistle. “How did they build all of this all the way out here?”

It was a valid question; the expense to bring all of the construction materials out here must have been astronomical. He couldn’t imagine that the weather would have been very conductive to the job either, though at least this location between the two islands was sheltered from the worst of the elements. 

Jacob flashed a grin at the question, as though delighted to be asked about this particular subject. “Well, the Captains used the caves on this island as a hide-out on plenty of occasions over the centuries, but then after the Spanish-American War, the Yanks got their hands on it. In the twenties, this big high-roller bought it from the government. He got rich off the railroads, but he made the _real_ big money off prohibition. The guy wanted to build his dream home here. You know, _nice and private_.”

Xander had already considered that this island must have been useful for smugglers in the past, but something about that tone coming from a vampire made him think that it was something even more illicit being implied. “Oh, a General Zaroff type, love that.”

That earned a chuckle in response, and a nod. “Probably. But he never got the chance to move in. Captain Rackham got his hands on the construction plans early on, and he was enamored with the place. He even got away with making a few alterations to the blueprints and swapping them out with the originals; by the time anyone noticed, it was already built. And, well, there had been so many _accidents_ during the construction that it wasn’t like the contractors were willing to stick around and make any major changes.” That was something Xander understood intimately well; he imagined that undertaking a major construction project here must have been almost as interesting as working on the Hellmouth.

By this point, Jacob had navigated the boat over to the dock, and Xander assisted him in tying it up. Angel didn’t waste any time in disembarking; he looked notably relieved at finally being able to step foot on land once more. Spike hung back, clearly interested in the conversation. Jacob and Xander made their way along the docks at a much more casual pace than Angel had.

“So you guys stole the place from this mobster guy after he finished construction?” Xander asked.

“Exactly,” Jacob replied, looking as though he remembered the whole affair quite fondly. “Captain Rackham even got all the paperwork squared away, bribed a couple government officials.”

As Jacob led them to a paved walkway that wound its way up the hillside to the manor, he continued to recount their successful heist of an entire island estate; apparently Lucy had been involved as well, along with someone named Harriet. Angel fell into step at the rear of the group once they had caught up with him, and Xander found himself admitting that it was, perhaps, just maybe, a good thing that Angel had decided to come along; if things went sour then Xander’s chances of making it off of Secret Demon Island in one piece were somewhat higher when he had two vampires protecting his ass instead of just one. 

Xander soon concluded that this place seemed to act as one big demonic speakeasy. They passed a handful of demons along the way up the hill, a few of which looked at the group judgmentally as they walked by. At least two sent seething glares in Angel’s direction, but for the most part no one seemed to pay them much mind. Spike’s delite at their surroundings was obvious, and he expressed disappointment that no one had told him about this place sooner. 

The facade of the manor was cracked in a few places, the paint faded, but overall it wasn’t in terrible condition. A large, weather-worn pirate flag hung from a balcony, the skull and crossed swords occasionally rustled by the breeze. Xander had to sidestep a shattered liquor bottle as they approached the entrance.

Xander thought he was doing a good enough job at resisting the urge to gawk at their surroundings, maintaining a coolguy aloof disposition, but nothing could have prepared him for the sights that greeted them when they entered the building. He would have described the scene as though a hoarder lived here, except they weren’t hoarding old newspapers and McDonald’s toys and other garbage like his Aunt Karen; there were large oil paintings in gilded frames piled against the walls, ornate vases that held anything from withered flowers to a couple of old swords, a nude marble statue that was being used as a hat rack. Not everything was vintage; there was the occasional modern art piece mixed in with the rest, and a sleek flat-screen television mounted on the wall. Some of the shelves held items that Xander recognized from the Magic Box, the sort of things that Anya would have scolded him for touching if he didn’t intend to pay for them. There were books piled on practically every available surface in a sort of orderly disorder, ranging from tomes that Giles would have loved to get his hands on, to first edition copies of famed literary works, to mass market paperbacks that could have been purchased in an airport kiosk. 

But even more distracting than all of that was the gold. 

There was so much gold. 

Gold candelabras, gold chalices, gold coins that were spilling from vases or scattered on tables. Gold necklaces that hung from the chandelier or dangled from the hand of the statue. Gold bars stacked in the corner as casually as Xander would have stacked his video games. 

It seemed careless, at first glance; the front door hadn’t even been locked, so any demon on the island could have wandered in here and stuffed their pockets with treasure. But Xander wasn’t that foolish. It reminded him of the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin; part of him was anxious about even touching any of the valuables by accident, as though a curse would be unleashed upon anyone who was tempted to steal anything. Of course, maybe there was no curse, and the owner of this estate was simply that confident that no one would dare cross him without meeting the sort of unseemly demise that would provide a brutal example of what sort of consequences awaited anyone else who contemplated stealing from this place.

Jacob excused himself, heading down the hallway to locate their host, leaving the three of them alone in the parlor. 

Spike didn’t seem as apprehensive as Xander; he let out an impressed whistle as he held up a necklace with what appeared to be the largest sapphire he’d ever seen as the centerpiece. Angel shot him a glare, and Spike returned the necklace to where he had found it just in time to prevent Angel from trying to slap it out of his hand.

“Now _this_ is a lair,” Spike declared.

“It’s a gaudy mess, if you ask me,” Angel replied.

“No one asked you,” Xander responded, tilting his head to get a better look at the title of one of the books; he was pretty sure that it was a volume that Willow had been trying to find for years. “Not that I don’t respect that whole art deco thing you have going on, Angel, but your whole vibe is kind of…”

“Depressing,” Spike offered, and Xander nodded in agreement.

“I’m a _vampire_ ,” Angel protested. But before they could argue further, Jacob returned in that moment, gesturing for them to follow. 

“Captain Rackham is busy at the moment, so you’ll be meeting with Captain Vane,” Jacob explained. He kept his tone of voice pleasant enough, but there was something about it that seemed almost strained; Xander found himself recalling Lorne’s expression when he had expressed that he ‘ _wasn’t very fond of him_ ’.

Jacob led them to a room that functioned as an office, with a large window overlooking the water, and a heavy oak desk surrounded by several chairs. Xander took a seat and Spike and Angel soon followed, seating themselves on either side of him. Behind the desk was a painting that occupied most of the wall, a ship cast about in a storm. The adjoining wall held a painting of a man in uniform that appeared to have been used for knife throwing practice. 

They were left waiting for several minutes. Then, finally, a man entered the room. And Xander decided that he was no longer skeptical about whether or not these guys were actually pirates. He looked like he could have stepped right off the cover of one of Anya’s bodice-ripping romance novels that Xander _may_ have perused once or twice. Xander only became conscious of the fact that he was staring a bit too obviously when Angel kicked the leg of his chair, but at least Spike was staring too, which made it excusable as far as he was concerned. The very attractive, very muscular pirate man seated himself on the opposite side of the desk and propped his legs up on the table with little regard for the papers that ended up rustled by his heavy boots. He took a long drag of the cigar he held in one hand, giving them a long, considering look.

“You’re the fucker with the soul,” he stated bluntly, looking pointedly at Angel. 

_Of-fucking-course he noticed that right away._ Xander shot a glare in Angel’s direction. 

“Well, yes,” Angel replied somewhat awkwardly. “But I’m not here to give you any trouble.”

The Captain scoffed at that, as though amused by the very notion of Angel trying to pick a fight with him. 

“We were hoping to negotiate a purchase. A magical artefact that you have in your possession,” Angel explained, and Xander found himself irritated that Angel had decided to speak on behalf of their group. 

“Don’t see why I should sell anything to some annoying do-gooders like you,” Vane replied.

“I’m not a do-gooder. I hate doing good,” Spike protested, earning at least a considering look from the other vampire. 

“I try to think of myself as morally neutral. The self-help book I was reading says I should try to work on, y’know, moving past the old habits of black-and-white thinking,” Xander stated. He decided to steer the conversation back to business. “We can pay whatever you ask.” One of the benefits of negotiating purchases on Willow’s behalf--she was very good at coming up with funds these days. Xander didn’t ask where the money came from, he trusted Willow’s judgement regarding what corporate accounts she may be skimming from. 

“Don’t need money. I have money.” 

“Okay, yeah, I can see that,” Xander responded with an awkward laugh. “I’m sure we could figure out some kind of trade, or maybe an I.O.U…” He trailed off as he noticed that Vane definitely wasn’t listening to him anymore. 

And as he looked to either side of him, he noted that Angel and Spike weren’t listening either. 

All three vampires’ attention was elsewhere; they had looked in the direction of the door as though they had all suddenly heard something that was imperceptible to Xander’s ears. 

“Uh, hello?”

Vane was suddenly on his feet, leaving the room. Angel stood and followed after a few seconds. Xander frowned and turned to Spike, who gave a shrug in response, and then they were both trailing after the two older vampires. 

“Hey, we weren’t done with our conversation,” Angel was protesting as he attempted to match his stride with Vane, who didn’t bother to grace him with a response. 

As they made their way down the hallway, Xander could eventually hear the commotion that had drawn the attention of the vampires. He could hear a man’s raised voice, not exactly shouting, but certainly ranting in a heated manner. 

“--can’t believe I actually bothered to clean up the fucking mess you left in Cancún. Don’t think that I did it for you. I don’t like Slayers in _my territory_ , and do you think that they’re not going to _notice_ something like that? Who the hell is your sire, anyway? I want to know who’s the smartass going around turning idiots like you.”

They reached a large parlor room, just as cluttered with gold and other valuables as the first, with an ornate piano in one corner and a series of french doors that opened out onto a courtyard with a fountain, surrounded by palm trees. There were a few vampires in the room--a tall man with impressive biceps standing in the corner seemingly watching the lecture with an almost bored expression; a man in a polo shirt who probably wasn’t any older than Xander, seated in a chair and looking surprisingly sheepish for a vampire; and then there was the man who was speaking, pacing the center of the room and occasionally gesturing in an animated manner as he berated the undead frat boy seated before him. The latter had the sort of unique facial hair that would have made Buffy instantly peg him as a vampire if he were to walk into the Bronze looking like that--except Xander was actually pretty sure that Buffy owned that same pair of striped silver pants. 

Xander and Spike stood in the doorway, watching as Vane crossed the room to stand beside the irate vampire. 

“This is the guy you’ve been looking for?” Vane asked. 

“Yeah. And I’m tired of smelling that cheap fucking cologne.” 

It happened almost too fast for Xander’s eye to follow: he drew a dagger and plunged it into the heart of the young vampire seated before him. It was only as the fledgeling crumbled to dust that Xander realized that the dagger was carved from solid wood, and he was suddenly struck with the desire to inspect the craftsmanship of it. The man who Xander presumed to be Captain Rackham wrinkled his nose as he shook some dust off of his designer boots. 

Xander was surprised when Spike was the first person to break the awkward silence that followed. 

“Oi, Adam Ant!”

Rackham blinked at him in surprise, seeming to actually register their presence at the periphery of the room for the first time, and then he was giving an amused grin and crossing over to where they stood. “Well, well. I didn’t realize _you_ were the appointment that Lucy scheduled…”

“Do you two know each other?” Angel interrupted, seeming just as surprised by this as Xander was.

Vane took a moment to look at Spike in a considering manner. “... ‘Cheekbones that could cut glass’...” he quoted after a moment, as though he had just recalled a conversation that had happened decades earlier. When he was only met with further looks of confusion, he clarified, “They fucked.”

Xander felt a moment of dawning realization. “You told me about that. In the seventies. You said that was the last time you’d gotten a ‘decent buggering from another bloke’.” He was very pleased with himself for making the connection so quickly.

“... _Excuse me?_ ” Angel replied indignantly after a moment, but Spike ignored his objection.

“I love what you’ve done with the place, by the way,” Spike remarked, gesturing vaguely at their surroundings that were not unlike what Xander would assume a dragon hoard to look like. 

“Thank you.” The well-dressed vampire suddenly turned his attention to Xander, his gaze lingering on the eyepatch in a quietly amused manner. “Who’s this fellow, then?”

“This is Xander,” Spike replied, draping his arm over Xander’s shoulders.

“Captain Jack Rackham,” he introduced himself, offering his hand. 

Xander took it and shook even as he found himself staring dumbly. “... _Holy shit you’re Calico Jack…”_ He pointed in Vane’s direction. “And he’s Charles Vane? Like, the actual Charles Vane?” The names had sounded familiar; he was almost disappointed in himself for not realizing it earlier. To be fair, he had been reasonably skeptical about them being actual, honest-to-god Golden Age pirates up until he had seen them both in person and those doubts had finally shattered.

Jack looked _delighted_ at the recognition. “Mm-hm.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you fucked _Calico Jack_?” Xander demanded, turning his attention to Spike.

“Uh… I didn’t know…” Spike answered.

“Dude, he stole an entire galleon full of Spanish gold. They’re, like, two of the most famous pirates ever.”

“Why do you know so much about pirates?” Angel asked, looking at Xander skeptically.

Xander stared at Angel blankly. With his single eye. Because he only had one of them. As evident from the damn eyepatch on his face. The eyepatch that had caused Xander to be subject to just about every pirate joke ever written. 

“I’m going to forgive you for asking that, since it’s actually because I made Willow watch _The Goonies_ on VHS with me every day for an entire summer when we were seven, so she started giving me books about real-life pirates every time she found them.”

“Yeah, that checks out,” Spike remarked. Angel gave a nod.

“Please, sit,” Jack said, gesturing at the furniture. He crossed the room to where a small bar was set up, grabbing a bottle of high-proof rum and some glasses. Charles was already planting himself on a sofa, a bottle of his own already in hand; his demeanor was notably more congenial than it had been when he first met them in the office. 

Spike seated himself on another sofa that was opposite Charles, and didn’t hesitate to slip his arm around Xander’s waist the moment that he sat beside him. Xander couldn’t help but wonder if this was some sort of territorial-vampire-thing, but he wasn’t objecting. He found himself incredibly conscious of the bite mark on his throat, not for the first time this evening. And he _enjoyed_ knowing that it was there. God, he was fucked up.

Jack sat across from Xander, placing the glasses on the table between them and then pouring the liquor.

“See, this is why I like you. You buy the good shit,” Spike commented on the expensive alcohol as he gladly accepted his glass. 

Angel was the last one to sit, in a chair a bit off to the side; Xander was impressed by his ability to look like he was sulking even while keeping his expression carefully neutral. This was the first time that Xander noticed that the Very Tall vampire who had been in the room when they initially arrived had exited at some point.

Xander sipped tentatively from his glass. He tended to stick to beer as of late (except for when he was doing shots off of Spike’s abs); this was definitely stronger than what he usually drank, and there were no mixers in sight. But, well, how often did he get the opportunity to drink _rum_ with _actual pirates_? 

“So, you’re here because you want to buy the… what was it?” Jack asked, with the tone of a man who had collected so many obscure magical items that he had to clarify which one they were after.

“The Fenxis Orb,” Xander replied.

“Huh. What do you want with _that_ thing?” Jack seemed legitimately curious.

“Not entirely sure, to be honest. The witch asked for it; we’re just errand boys,” Spike answered.

Jack gave a knowing look in response, as though he accepted that answer because he found it relatable in some way. “Well, I imagine we can figure out some sort of arrangement.”

Xander felt incredibly relieved by those words. Even Angel seemed to relax a bit.

“Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, what’d that guy do to piss you off?” Spike asked, gesturing in the direction of the dust pile on the floor.

“He went on a bender for Spring Break and killed as many undergrads as he could get to follow him back to his hotel room. Didn’t even bother to hide the bodies.” Charles sounded almost bored as he offered the explanation.

“And you… have a problem with that?” Angel asked, confusion evident. 

“It’s fucking pathetic. Picking off the easiest prey you can find, like a damn scavenger eating garbage.” There was a scornful tone to Charles’ voice. 

“We didn’t rise up to the top of the food chain just to eat weaklings off of any street corner like dumb animals. We hunt men who think they’re strong. And take their shit. And prove that they were never actually very strong at all,” Jack explained; despite the subject matter, his tone was surprisingly pleasant; it made it all sound perfectly rational, even as a faint voice in Xander’s head reminded him that these were Evil, Soulless Vampires so he probably shouldn’t be hanging on their every word. But it was kind of difficult to keep a level head when he kept having to push away very vivid mental images of the two vampires in front of him as they must have dressed three hundred years ago, on the windswept deck of a ship, and maybe a little bloodied from a fight, and then maybe Charles would pin Jack up against the mast--

“See, that’s what I’ve been saying. There should be a challenge to it,” Spike emphatically responded. A grin crept over Jack’s features; even Charles seemed quietly approving of the statement.

“You never had any objections to picking off college students in the past, Spike,” Angel replied flatly. 

“Yeah, well, that was in the past. I like to think that I’ve, you know, grown as a vampire. Refined my tastes, you could say. Getting rid of the chip really makes you appreciate the kill in a new way.”

“Normally I’d say that Spike is full of shit, but I think he’s actually serious about this,” Xander found himself informing Angel. The lone souled vampire in the room continued to look skeptical, but was apparently willing to accept that there was merit to Xander’s testimony. 

“Figures that _he_ wouldn’t understand this sort of thing. Back in the day he would have called you ‘ _deviants_ ’,” Spike mused wryly. Angel looked mortified, but Jack and Charles were clearly amused; Jack actually let out a deep laugh.

“Oh, but we _are_ deviants,” Jack responded with a smirk, which turned to a grin as Charles leaned in to lick Jack’s throat from his collar all the way up to his jaw, and then bit down on his neck with blunt teeth.

And Xander couldn’t tear his eyes away. Fuck. Why did vampires have to be _like this_?

Xander suddenly downed the remainder of his drink, desperate for a momentary distraction from horny pirate thoughts that everyone else in the room would soon be able to deduce if he didn’t manage to get his hormones under control. But he clearly wasn’t fooling Spike, since he felt a cold hand patting his back as he set the empty glass on the table. He made eye contact with the blond vampire and flashed a grin at him, as though silently communicating ‘ _I’m fine, I’ve got a grip on things, really'_. 

Angel was pointedly looking at a pile of skulls located in one corner of the room as though it was incredibly interesting. (To be fair, the pile of skulls was actually pretty interesting.)

“Hey, is that a Mergath demon skull?” Xander asked conversationally, glad for an excuse to change the subject. Thankfully, Charles was no longer doing anything terribly distracting, though Jack’s fingers were absently toying with Charles’ beautiful pirate hair. 

“Yeah, fucker nearly took my arm off,” Charles replied.

“We ran into one of them in Big Sur a couple months back,” Xander explained.

“He lit the damn thing on fire. It was beautiful,” Spike recalled with a fond expression.

“Huh, I didn’t know that worked on them,” Jack said thoughtfully.

From that point, the conversation shifted to various tales of past exploits against supernatural foes, something that even Angel could appreciate. Even if Jack and Charles had no interest in eliminating evil from this world, they apparently had plenty of excuses for picking fights with other demons regardless, be it for financial gain or territorial impulse or because Charles was just in the mood to fight something that actually provided a semblance of a challenge; Spike and Angel could certainly relate to that last part, regardless of whether the latter was in the mood to admit it. 

Jack was dutiful in ensuring that everyone’s glasses remained full, which was something Xander had to be conscious of; drinking with vampires was always a matter of carefully pacing himself, considering that the undead had an unnaturally high alcohol tolerance. After about an hour of conversation, they made their way out to sit on the patio, and Xander found himself grateful for the cool, fresh air. He noted that a mist was starting to gather over the island, which likely wouldn’t dissipate until long after the sun rose. From here he could hear the distant tones of the music that was being played at the bar he had seen when they arrived. It was shortly after they made the move outdoors that Xander found himself being offered a joint by The Real Honest-To-God Charles Vane, and, well, he could hardly say no to something like that. (After, of course, subtly asking Spike to take a sniff and verify that it wasn’t laced with anything questionable.) Though the courtyard still had a certain degree of privacy to it, there were occasional visitors passing through--Jacob showed up sometime after midnight to join them for a couple drinks, and the Very Tall Guy (who Xander learnt was named Billy) made another appearance as well. 

Xander eventually succeeded in getting their hosts to begin reminiscing about their days of piracy; Jack did most of the talking, but Charles occasionally supplemented his stories. By this point, Xander was tipsy enough that he didn’t mind so much if people noticed that he was hanging on the tales of swashbuckling like an enamored teenage boy hearing about Faith nude-wrestling an alligator. And while most of the stories were about their time as captains of their own ships, they also mentioned exploits that had occurred after they had become vampires, which tended to involve significantly more gore, but Xander didn’t even bat an eyelash at the more unseemly details; all the years of Anya and then Spike having trouble distinguishing between appropriate pillow talk and overly detailed accounts of past slaughters had desensitized him more than he cared to admit. 

At some point, Jack finally broached the subject of The Eyepatch. 

“I got my eye gouged out by a sociopathic preacher guy who was working for the ancient essence of evil itself.”

“Oh.” Jack looked pleasantly surprised. “Now that’s a story I’d like to hear sometime.”

Despite Xander’s attempts to pace himself, there did come a time in the night that he was forced to concede that he was, regretfully, totally and completely plastered. By this point, he was practically in Spike’s lap, his head resting on Spike’s shoulder, enjoying the sensation of cool fingers idly combing through his hair. He couldn’t bring himself to feel remotely self-conscious about the way he was draped over the blond vampire, considering the way that Charles had gotten even bolder in his attentions to Jack’s throat as the empty liquor bottles had piled up; at one point the fangs had even come out, and Xander was going to have _that_ image burned into his mind for a _long_ time. 

“Hey, did it ever get confusing that he’s, like, your vampire-mate, but people thought you were talking about your ship-mate? I feel like that could be the source of some quality miscommunication-based humor...”

“I think we should get Xander here to bed,” Angel suggested, and Xander blinked as he felt a cold glass of water being pressed into his hand.

“You’re not the boss of me, Angel,” he murmured, even as he dutifully sipped from the glass and allowed Spike to help him to his feet. “Have fun shivering his timber,” he called out in Jack’s direction, laughing at his own barely comprehensible joke as he was escorted back into the house, grateful for Spike’s arm around his waist to support him as he attempted to walk in a straight line. 

Afterwards, Xander couldn’t actually recall whether it was Jacob or Billy that had guided them to a bedroom; he just knew that one of them must have helped lead the way upstairs and past cabinets full of jeweled crowns and ivory statues and cascading strands of black pearls, past a shining suit of armor and the mounted head of a unicorn and what Xander recognized as a troll’s hammer that was being used as a doorstop. However he had ended up there, he was incredibly grateful for the large bed that he found himself deposited upon; nearly the moment his head was settled upon a pillow, he felt the comforting embrace of unconsciousness, reassured by Spike’s presence beside him that he could sleep soundly without needing to worry about becoming a snack for one of the island’s residents.

* * *

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2a6l6wM2k>


	5. The Deep

**NASSAU**

**A COUPLE WEEKS AGO**

When Willow was little, she had once stood on the beach in Sunnydale and looked out over the ocean, and tried to comprehend the magnitude of it. Tried to visualize the leagues and leagues of water that spanned out before her. Wondered what shore was on the other side of that great expanse (she was pretty sure it was China, but she wasn’t certain about it). And when she got older, she learnt about the Mariana Trench, and would stare out at the rolling waters of the Pacific and tried to imagine that deep void that went down for miles and miles beyond where sunlight was capable of reaching. 

All of her years of training in magic had not lessened her feelings of insignificance when she tried to understand the sheer scale of the ocean. She could sit on the ground and reach out through the soil to feel the roots of every living plant, to feel connected to everything. But when she stood in the ocean, the water lapping at her legs, she heard an entire cacophony of noise; she tried to focus, to distinguish between the various notes, but it still overwhelmed her every time she made the attempt. 

But there was to be no more dalliance in this area of her studies. Now, even when she was a hundred miles from the nearest shore, the ocean was calling to her, and she could not shake the sense of foreboding that had washed over her weeks ago. She had sat on the banks of the Aegean Sea and tried every method of scrying and divination that she trusted, seeking a clearer understanding of what was calling out from the deep, but it was difficult when she wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. Her efforts were only rewarded with images of dark water; cold and crushing and so far from safe and solid land; with the sensation of being cast about helpless by the current, like the time she had been nine-years-old and swam too far from the beach and had been sent tumbling under the water when she was caught in the undertow of a wave.

She tried again in Iceland. Tried to read the winds, to map the currents and tides, searching for anomalies, anything to give her a hint of what the ocean was trying to tell her, but none of those things were actually behaving abnormally.

It was times like these that she really wished that she wasn’t alone in all of this. The Devon coven had proved invaluable guidance when she was still reeling from the loss of Tara, and she still consulted them on occasion, but ultimately they were still novices themselves in many ways. She had truly spent many years unaware of just how unprecedented her rapid accumulation of power had been; there were members of the Devon coven who had been studying witchcraft for nearly 70 years who weren’t capable of half the spells that Willow had mastered. It wasn’t that Willow was cocky about her abilities. It was just isolating at times like this when none of the coven members had the expertise to provide guidance in the latest of Willow’s magical conundrums. 

She had received offers from other covens, of course; had been extended the opportunities for apprenticeships under some of the most powerful sorcerers in the multiverse. But she had been unable to bring herself to accept any of them. Too many times, it had been blatantly obvious that the offers were thinly-veiled attempts to gain influence over her; that in their eyes, she was nothing more than a weapon, something to be harnessed and controlled. Maybe some of the offers were truly magnanimous. But she would only know for certain if the time was taken to build trust, and she wasn’t sure if she was even ready to open up to someone like that. It had been hard enough to allow herself to start dating again; the prospect of searching for partners she could rely upon in these matters was another daunting task entirely.

After a fruitless week in New Zealand, Willow devised a new approach. Instead of attempting to attune herself to the ocean, she would try to connect with its inhabitants; she reached out to swarms of fish and pods of whales, felt life pumping through hearts as small as her thumbnail or as large as a Volkswagon, allowed her consciousness to be drawn through the currents all around the world by these varied creatures. 

And, finally, she found a clue. They were avoiding something. 

It was hardly an exact science, but she had been able to sense that there was one spot in the vastness of the oceans that the sea life seemed to be uncharacteristically steering clear of. She had only a rough idea of the coordinates, but when she looked at it on a map, she was conflicted as to whether she should laugh or curse herself for not taking this into consideration earlier. 

The location in question was definitely within the bounds of the Bermuda Triangle.

In all of her years of playing Watcher-Junior, she had encountered the occasional odd tale about the Bermuda Triangle, but her general impression of the matter was that it wasn’t any more prone to supernatural occurrences than any other intersection of trade routes that had accumulated all of the psychic baggage associated with that sort of thing. Compared to the Hellmouth, it sounded positively mundane. But it wasn’t something that she had ever actually taken the time to study in-depth; maybe there actually was some merit to the Bermuda Triangle’s peculiar reputation--she had seen too many oddities to dismiss the possibility. 

* * *

Willow booked a hotel online. There were dozens of resorts to choose from, of course, but Willow was inclined to be particular about that sort of thing nowadays--hotels tended to give her the willies more often than not; they picked up all sorts of weird energy from the multitudes of guests that passed through the space, and that could complicate the task that brought her to the Bahamas in the first place. But she had been fortuitous: on her third time scouring the listings, a room had become available at a quaint little hotel outside of the city. 

The taxi driver looked startled when she told him the name of her destination; he and the other driver who had been standing beside him looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. When Willow asked if they could tell her anything about the hotel, they both crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further. It was all very mysterious and not by any means comforting. But he still accepted the fare, and drove her across the island to her destination, where he stopped the taxi at the edge of the property. Willow did not mind walking the length of the driveway up to the entrance; it wasn’t as though she had much luggage to carry.

The building certainly did not appear ominous. It was even smaller than Willow had anticipated; she doubted the hotel could possibly have more than twelve guest rooms, which were built around a central courtyard. From the looks of it, she guessed that it must have been built in the late 18th or early 19th century, but she wasn’t an expert on that sort of thing; she imagined Xander would have something delightfully nerdy to say on the matter. 

A fountain gently trickled in the center of the courtyard, and it was surrounded by countless vibrant flowers, more than she would have thought possible. There were no guests to be seen; the place seemed deserted, strangely enough, because the hotel was immaculately upkept, and it was close enough to the tourist season that she would have expected a place like this to be filled to capacity. 

Willow located the front desk, and finally found another human waiting there. She was an older woman, perhaps in her seventies, wearing a vibrant blue dress, with long silver curls tumbling down her back. She had aged gracefully; her brown skin was wrinkled, but she still had delicate features and a beautiful smile, and wore only minimal make-up. She had been reading before Willow walked in, but had immediately set the book aside when she noticed her guest, so Willow did not get a chance to peek at the cover. 

“Good afternoon,” she greeted.

“Hello! I almost thought this place was deserted,” Willow replied with a self-effacing laugh. “I have a reservation.”

“Ah, you must be Miss Rosenburg.” She opened a book, an old-fashioned guest registry that Willow had rarely seen in person before--most of the hotels she’d stayed at used computer systems for that sort of thing. She filled out a few spots on the sheets before sliding the book over to Willow to sign. “I’m Max. If you need anything during your stay, do not hesitate to let me know.”

Willow took a moment to read over the page; all the details appeared standard and in-order, but she couldn’t help noticing that it appeared that no one else had signed the guest registry in quite some time. “Is it very busy here?” she asked casually. “I mean, you have such a beautiful hotel, but I haven’t seen any other guests around…”

“Oh, yes. We are fully booked,” Max replied with a smile, handing Willow her room key. “Your room will be on the second floor, take a left at the top of the stairs and it will be just around the corner.

Well. Huh. Maybe all the other guests were out enjoying the beaches. Willow’s cursory impression of the place was positive; it wasn’t exuding any ominous energy--quite the opposite, in fact. 

Willow headed up to her room to settle in. She had only a small suitcase, with more space dedicated to spell reagents than to clothing. The room was modestly sized, which she expected from a building this old; the furniture was antique but comfortable enough. She was a little bit disappointed that the hotel was too far inland to see the ocean from here, but the window provided a picturesque enough view of palm trees and more colorful flowers that surrounded the building. There was no television in the room, but she had seen one down by the front desk; it was hardly an inconvenience since she doubted she’d be spending much time in the hotel room anyway. She’d have to go back into the city if she wanted to find wi-fi anywhere. 

The rest of the day was spent out on the beach, where Willow did some basic divination spells to try to get her bearings. She had dinner in a little restaurant that overlooked the ocean, and didn’t return to the hotel until well after dark. 

The next morning, she ordered breakfast from room service, and noted that Max was both the person to take the order, and the one to deliver it. She was starting to suspect that Max was the only person who worked here, as strange as that sounded. Despite the other woman’s apparent age, she seemed to have plenty of energy, and was always exceptionally friendly whenever they spoke. Willow could not help but take an immediate liking to her, in spite of the oddness of the situation. 

The following day, when Max delivered Willow’s breakfast once again, she extended an invitation for Willow to join her for tea in the courtyard at 2pm. Willow had been planning to set out for the beach earlier than that, but she immediately decided to rearrange her plans for the day; her curiosity about this place and it's only visible inhabitant was growing too great--it was beginning to distract her from the task that had brought her to this island in the first place. 

At 1:55pm, Willow made her way down to the courtyard, and found Max already seated at a table, tea set in place before her. At this time in the afternoon, the sun was bright overhead, but the various palms and large flowering bushes kept the table shaded. There were small birds chirping around them, and the sounds of larger sea birds in the distance. There was something timeless about the sight of Max seated there with her antique tea set and vintage jewelry against the backdrop of this centuries-old building, as though Willow could have just as well have stepped back into the age of sail; she was taken aback by just how vividly she could imagine it. 

“I’m glad you could join me,” Max greeted with a soft smile, waiting for Willow to seat herself across the table before reaching for the teapot and filling both of their cups. Willow did not reach for it just yet; there was steam rising from the cup in swirling clouds. 

“You really are the only other person in this hotel, aren’t you?” Willow inwardly cringed at how forward it sounded to her own ears, and hoped that Max did not think she was being accusatory. But Willow’s curiosity had grown too great, and she had reached out with her magic several times over the past eighteen hours, trying to sense for any other presence within the rooms of the hotel, human or supernatural; there had been no one but Max. 

Thankfully, Max did not seem offended, she just smiled patiently and gave a nod. “Presently, yes.” She did not elaborate. “You have come to this place because you can feel it too. Whatever it is, out there in the ocean.”

Willow fought to hide her surprise at the question. “I… Yes.” She was staring at Max; it was rude to stare like this, probably. But in that moment, the older woman’s presence was so authoritative--she looked like something out of a painting, wise and refined and surely holding secrets from decades past that had been otherwise lost to time but were concealed in plain sight beneath the brush strokes and varnish. It was dangerous to be influenced by such ephemeral matters as appearances, Willow reminded herself, but she did not turn away. “I think it’s close, but I can’t get a clear impression of it… Every time I try, it’s just water and darkness and cold… I don’t even know what I’m _looking for_ …”

“It does not want to be found. Not by us. Not yet,” Max replied. 

Willow reached for her teacup. She felt chilled, all of a sudden, like the chill she felt every time she tried to cast her magic deep out into the ocean to sense out this unknown _presence_. “Did you know who I was, when I came here?” She felt awkward asking the question; she still wasn’t accustomed to the idea of her own infamy, that was supposed to be Buffy’s whole deal, not Willow’s. 

“I have heard of you, yes. I think that just about every witch of any merit had heard of you by now. You changed the world, after all.” Max took a sip of her tea. “I did not try to trick you into coming here, do not be mistaken. I just realized that you may be able to solve this mystery that had plagued us both, and resolved to open my home to you, to aid in your efforts. But I will not deny that I am curious about you, Miss Rosenburg.”

Willow wanted to trust her. Maybe that was a mistake. But she was not jaded enough to always assume the worst of people. She managed a smile, albeit a guarded one. “We’ll work together?”

* * *

They went to the beach at dusk. Seated on the sand in the fading twilight, they joined hands and cast their magic out over the ocean, searching once more for this unknown malignance. They did not find it. But, regardless, Willow learnt something very important: Max was powerful. Very powerful. Powerful enough that she must have been shielding her magic this entire time, otherwise Willow would have sensed it the moment she arrived. Which gave Willow a great deal to think about. She knew practically nothing about this older witch, but Max knew about her, which already created an imbalance in this relationship. Willow was cautious about which spellcasters she chose to ally herself with; the disaster that had been her friendship with Amy still weighed heavily upon her mind. But whatever this thing was, this ominous force that was quietly gathering its strength somewhere out there in the depths of the ocean, Willow suspected that she would need allies to face it, and that it may very well be something that Slayers could not simply defeat by punching really hard. So she could try to trust Max, unless she was actually given reason not to. 

Besides, Willow really didn’t want to have to book a new hotel room.

* * *

Two days later, a fishing vessel washed up on the shore of New Providence Island--there was no sign of the crew. It was enough of a mystery to set the island’s population and the tourists alike abuzz, but only warranted a passing mention on the news. Willow set out to investigate the matter personally. There was a local police officer guarding the scene when she arrived, but she was able to slip past him with practiced ease; a simple misdirection spell ensured that he never even noticed that she was there. 

Sure enough, when Willow stepped on board the boat, she could feel a faint but ominous energy in the air. There were no signs of violence, no spilt blood, no visible clues as to what had caused the disappearance of the crew; for all Willow knew, they could have been drowned by damn mermaids. (Oh, how she _wished_ that the answer could be mermaids, for once.) She went down below deck to investigate further--it took a while for her eyes to adjust after being in the bright tropical sunlight, and the combination of her momentary near-blindness and the rocking of the deck beneath her feet left Willow with a queasy sense of unease. She really wished that Buffy and Xander were there with her right about now; investigating a ghost ship definitely seemed like a Scooby group outing. A loud creak overhead caused Willow to jump, but she quickly realized that it was just the mast being jostled by the wind. It wasn’t a very large boat, so it didn’t take very long for Willow to conclude that there were no noteworthy clues to be found within its hull. She was a bit disappointed to leave without learning anything significant, but at the same time, she was eager to be far away from this mysteriously abandoned vessel. 

Willow turned to leave, and did not waste any time in exiting the boat to return to the dock. She had only just set foot on the solid wood of the dock once more when she heard footsteps right behind her, and whirled around to find herself face-to-face with another person--it was surprising that someone could have snuck up so close to her without being noticed, and Willow nearly lost her footing, but managed to steady herself. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” the other woman snarled, clearly sizing Willow up with her gaze, her narrowed eyes shadowed by the wide brim of her hat. At first glance, the other redhead appeared nearly the same age as Willow, but the grey streaks in her hair betrayed that she was perhaps older than she seemed. There was something ageless about her, and it took only moments for Willow to realize that there was a powerful aura of magic radiating from this woman--she made no effort to conceal it like Max had. If she was also a witch, then it was likely that she had come to investigate this boat for the same reason that Willow had.

Willow attempted to gather her nerves and sound confident and authoritative when she responded. “I came to see if I could find any clues, to figure out what happened to the crew. I wanted to make sure they weren’t killed by vampires or something.”

“It wasn’t vampires,” the other woman replied derisively; she made the statement with complete confidence.

“Well, yeah, it doesn’t look that way...” Willow responded, and was disappointed in herself for the sheepish tone. But the dour woman who wore an oversized coat in spite of the weather was no longer paying attention, she had turned to face the boat and reached out to place a hand against the hull. She closed her eyes, and Willow could tell that she was reaching out with her magic, trying to sense whatever information she could gather from this vessel. Willow had long been aware of the existence of witches who specialized in magic related to the sea, but they had always remained enigmatic--it was a branch of magic that wasn’t taught in the dusty books that Willow had studied in the library of Sunnydale High or the Magic Shop; something that couldn’t be learned through reading, it was more chaotic than that, more tied to intuition and emotion, and the process of mastering these magics was a personal journey unique to every witch who had ever managed it. In that moment, Willow was suddenly quite certain that she was in the presence of one of these fabled witches, who sailors had once believed capable of calling down a hurricane upon them. 

The other woman furrowed her brow, before she was suddenly drawing her hand away from the boat with the urgency of someone flinching from a hot stove. “This is bad,” she muttered, turning on her heel and marching down the dock and back to the shore. 

Willow hurried after her. “Hey, wait! You felt it, didn’t you? That… _thing_ that’s out there in the ocean.”

“It’s a demon,” she replied bluntly.

“Well, yeah. I kinda figured that much…”

“Fuckin’ old one.

“The freaky ones usually are.”

The woman finally paused in her step, turning back to look at Willow in a considering manner, as though really assessing the other witch for the first time. Willow fought the urge to fidget under the intensity of the inscrutable gaze. “Need to talk to Max...” the other redhead grumbled.

* * *

Upon returning to the inn, the woman--who Willow came to learn was named Anne--disappeared into a room with Max, and Willow did not see either of them for hours. It was frustrating to be left out of the conversation, and the impulse to magically eavesdrop certainly crossed Willow’s mind, though she quickly dismissed the thought (besides, they were apparently both powerful witches themselves, and would likely notice something like that). Eventually, Max emerged from her quarters and invited Willow to join them. It was the first time that Willow had been invited into the older woman’s private rooms since she had arrived. Max’s personal quarters were a large suite on the top floor of the building, and when Willow entered she found herself in a parlor filled with elegant antique furniture. One wall of the room was occupied by bookshelves that spanned floor to ceiling, and the neatly organized tomes were immediately familiar to Willow--she quickly observed that the majority of the books pertained to witchcraft: many of the titles were ones that Willow herself was very familiar with. The library was less extensive than Giles’ collection, but more specialized, including rare books on magic that Willow had never been able to get her hands on before. Willow felt just a bit bitter that this collection had been here this entire time yet had been kept secret from her until now, but she couldn’t really fault Max for that; the sorts of powerful spells and rituals described in these texts were not something that Willow would be comfortable sharing with a spellcaster that she didn’t trust either. 

“Whatever it is that we are up against, I suspect that it had begun to feed.” Max drew a few books from the shelves and handed them to Willow. “I have already searched through all of these for anything that may help us, but I’m at a loss. Perhaps a fresh perspective will help; maybe you’ll see something that I missed, be able to come up with some sort of creative solution…”

Willow nodded, already opening one of the books and glancing over the table of contents, then making her way over to an armchair and taking a seat so that she could begin to read in earnest. Research-mode was familiar to Willow, and comforting in its own way; it made her feel like she was actually accomplishing something. Even if she didn’t find the answers she was looking for, she appreciated the excuse to browse Max’s entire collection of books. 

Willow perused the books until nearly 3am, slept for less than six hours, and then resumed the task first thing in the morning. Max brought meals to her and periodically chatted with her when she took short breaks after finishing with one book and before moving on to the next. Anne was like a shadow in the background; sometimes Willow nearly forgot about her presence entirely, but then she would feel the overwhelming sensation of being watched and suddenly become vividly aware of the other witch’s company. Willow found herself incredibly curious about the relationship between the two, but it seemed impolite to ask. They were obviously close, and regarded one another as equals. Max appeared decades older than Anne, yet Willow somehow suspected that they were near one another in age--they both gave her the impression that they were much older than they appeared; in the case of both women, there was something in the aura of their magic that seemed _old_ , like it was the accumulation of ages, unlike Willow’s own powers that were potent but unseasoned. And then there was the building itself--now that Willow had spent so much time in the place, she could tell that Max’s aura permeated into the very foundation of the inn, as though she had resided there ever since the place was built. Willow did not dismiss the possibility. The books on dark magic that she had absorbed in Sunnydale contained more than one spell for prolonging life; if a witch was powerful enough, there were a multitude of possibilities, undoubtedly more than Willow was personally aware of. 

It felt strange to have these two unfamiliar witches as her companions during her research, rather than Buffy and Xander. She was starting to feel guilty that she had not yet notified Buffy of this unseen threat that she was searching for; it felt _wrong_ to leave the Slayers out. But Buffy always had enough problems on her plate without Willow getting her worried about something that she wasn’t even certain constituted an emergency--she had no reason yet to believe that this likely-demonic entity had any intent of budging from wherever it was currently lurking in the depths of the ocean, and the Slayers weren’t exactly prepared for underwater combat. She felt guilty about leaving Xander out of things too; they had been inseparable for so long, but Willow’s training in witchcraft had required her to travel to places he was unable to follow. She hated thinking about him all alone in Santa Carla while she and Buffy went on various supernatural adventures, but at least he had Spike keeping him company these days.

It was late in the evening that Willow finally had a breakthrough in her research. One of the books described a device that, with a few modifications, she suspected that she could use to scry the ocean for the being that she was searching for. And locating the item in question did not prove to be difficult--in a stroke of good fortune, the last known owner of the item resided in Miami. The only problem was that the individual in question was a vampire, and one who should not be taken lightly, if there was any truth to the stories she’d heard about the vampire population of Miami--the Council was still wary of the region, even now that the Slayers numbered in the thousands. Willow wasn’t so great at bartering with vampires. But, fortunately, she knew a guy who was.

* * *

It was difficult not to feel impotent, sitting in the courtyard of the inn on New Providence Island as she waited for news from Xander and Spike while they were off attempting to track down the Fenxis Orb, but all that Willow could do at this point was wait. She had continued searching through Max’s books for any spells or information that could be useful, but hadn’t found anything else that seemed particularly helpful for the situation at hand. The books were still fascinating, of course; Willow was incredibly curious how Max had managed to get a hold of some of the volumes, considering that some of them were texts that Willow had previously believed to be lost to time. Every day, she found herself with more and more questions about the other witches, and very few answers. She and Max had gradually become more open with one another; it had become a daily routine for them to have breakfast and afternoon tea in the courtyard together, and Willow would often reminisce about her adventures in Sunnydale. The conversations were not one-sided; Max had shared stories about her travels to other islands throughout the Caribbean, or about some of the demons she had encountered in the past, or even about some of the spells that she and Anne had performed together. But there were very few personal details in the stories that she shared with Willow. Even after spending several weeks in one another’s company, Willow still felt like she knew practically nothing about the older witch’s past.

When Willow received the news that there would be further delay in Xander and Spike’s efforts to retrieve the orb, she found herself incredibly anxious. It was bad enough that she had to worry about that ominous thing out in the ocean (even if she wasn’t aware of any casualties to the creature, beyond the small crew of the fishing boat that she had investigated); learning that her friends had agreed to travel to some mysterious island to meet with vampire crime lords had her feeling the need to actively suppress the impulse to fly over there to accompany them, or at least magically spy on them and maybe cast a few protection spells. But conveniently enough, she received a phone call from Angel, who was distressed over the discovery that Spike had left California (he had undoubtedly jumped to the assumption that Spike had skipped town to go commit heinous misdeeds somewhere that Angel or Buffy wouldn’t immediately be able to catch him), and when she updated him on the situation he had immediately volunteered to go accompany Spike and Xander on their mission. She knew that Xander would be petulant about having to endure Angel’s company, but she doubted that she could talk Angel out of it, and the idea of Angel providing back-up in this situation was something that Willow found reassuring; it seemed unlikely that Xander could get himself killed with _two_ vampire bodyguards.

It was the day before Xander’s scheduled rendezvous at the marina that Willow caught news of another ghost ship washing up on the shore of Haiti--this ship larger than the last; thirty-two crew members and passengers were reported missing. And then later that afternoon, Anne had shown up, reporting that she had discovered an enclave of Gaz’gog demons camped out on a nearby island--an aggressive variety of demon that was rarely seen so close to human populations. Max had seemed so unflappable up until this point, but that was the day that it became obvious that she was just as anxious about the unseen threat in the ocean as Willow felt. She had paced around the courtyard for a time, before excusing herself to make a phone call and disappearing for nearly three hours. 

Willow would not have to wait long to learn just who it was that Max had felt the urgent need to speak to. The next evening, Willow was up in her room studying one of the spellbooks that she had borrowed from Max’s collection, trying to suppress the impulse to constantly check her phone to see if she had any messages from Xander--he was probably on a boat right about now. She had just taken a momentary break from reading to cross the room and refill her water glass from a pitcher on the dresser when she heard voices from the courtyard below. It was the first time in her entire stay that other guests had entered the hotel. Curiosity got the best of her, and she quietly exited her room to take a peek down into the courtyard from the balcony--and despite her attempts to be subtle, she was instantly noticed by the three guests who sat around a table with Max. And it was no mystery why they had noticed her. They were vampires; Willow had become adept at immediately spotting the aura of undeath. 

Max noticed that her companions were all looking up to where Willow was standing on the balcony. “Please, come join us,” she requested, her tone suggesting that she was not at all concerned about the fact that three demons were currently occupying her courtyard. 

Willow was reluctant, but began making her way down the stairs. She wasn’t really afraid of vampires, not like she used to be; she was quite confident in her ability to magically defend herself these days. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t cautious. As she entered the courtyard, she noticed Anne perched on a table in the corner, half-hidden by shadow. She was playing a handheld video game. Apparently, Anne didn’t consider the vampires to be a threat either. That was oddly reassuring.

Willow turned her attention to the three newcomers--two women and one man. They were all quite beautiful, and wore clothing that probably would have impressed even Cordelia. 

Max stood and crossed over to Willow’s side, taking the younger witch’s arm in her own. “This is my honored guest, Willow Rosenburg,” she explained to the vampires with a smile. “Willow, these are my dear friends, Harriet, Rani, and Jack Lively.”

“Hi,” Willow awkwardly greeted the three, before turning her attention to Max. “I guess you probably, um, already know that your friends are vampires…” That earned a laugh from everyone (except Anne, who was still engrossed in her game).

“Not just any vampires,” Jack interjected. “You’re in the esteemed presence of the Vampire Queen of Louisiana.” He gestured to Harriet as he said the title with relish, as though he enjoyed the excuse for the dramatic introduction. 

“ _O-oh…_ ” Willow replied, taken aback. ‘The Vampire Queen of Louisiana’ was mentioned numerous times in the Watcher journals from the past two centuries--and the accounts had always stuck in Willow’s memory because they weren’t actually negative, and it was darn rare for Watchers to have anything remotely positive to say about a vampire. If Willow was remembering correctly, and those accounts were to be trusted, then Harriet had done more to keep the vampire population of Louisiana and neighboring states under control than any Slayer; there was just something about Louisiana that attracted vampires like moths to a flame, and ‘The Vampire Queen’ had established herself in the territory by the time of the Louisiana Purchase; any vampires that chose to reside there had to abide by a certain code of conduct, ensuring that the actual casualties to vampire attacks were much lower than one would expect. Back when there was only a single Slayer in the entire world, that meant that the Council considered Louisiana a low-priority area in spite of the size of the vampire population--they wouldn’t waste time sending the Slayer there when there were Hellmouths to worry about. 

“Harriet has come to perform a spell with me,” Max explained. 

Willow had difficulty holding back her doubt. She wasn’t sure what kind of spell could possibly necessitate the involvement of a vampire; only dark magic, undoubtedly. “What do you mean? Max?” Her voice was tinged with uncertainty. 

Max gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry, it’s a harmless ritual. We have performed it together multiple times, over the years.” 

“Yeah, don’t sweat about it, this is a routine for them,” Rani said with a dazzling smile that was likely meant to be reassuring, but did nothing to quell Willow’s unease. 

It didn’t comfort her that Max continued to avoid actually explaining the nature of the spell that she intended to perform, even as she led the way up to her parlour and began setting out the reagents for the ritual, and Harriet made herself comfortable seated at the edge of the circle that Max drew on the floor. Rani, Jack, and Anne had all opted to remain downstairs in the courtyard.

“Anne is the one who taught me this spell, but I have never shared it with another witch,” Max explained as she placed a few seashells in a mortar and began to grind them with the pestle, until she had created a fine lavender-colored powder. “But going forward, I think it will be important that you and I can trust one another, and therefore I think that you deserve to see this, so you can fully understand it.”

All of the ingredients that Max had gathered for the spell appeared innocuous enough. That is, until Harriet drew a knife and ran it over her wrist without flinching, creating a shallow cut and letting the blood drip into a goblet that Max had presented to her. Willow drew in a sharp intake of breath as she witnessed this; the only time that she had ever been privy to a ritual involving vampire blood was the time that Drusilla had needed Angel’s blood to restore her strength. 

“What are you doing with that?” Willow asked anxiously as Harriet handed the goblet to Max, who began to mix the other spell ingredients into the cup. She did not receive an answer; Max was already beginning to recite an incantation in a language that Willow did not recognize. Willow did not protest any further; she knew that interrupting a ritual at this point could result in truly unfortunate effects. All she could do now was watch nervously.

By the time that Max was finished reciting the words, the hairs on Willow’s arms were standing on end; the air was thick with magical energy. The night sky outside the windows seemed darker somehow. Max lifted the goblet with both hands and drank the entirety of the contents in one long draught. She then set the cup aside and joined hands with Harriet, and together they spoke a few more lines of incantation before leaning in to meet in a kiss. As their lips touched, Willow felt a shift in the air, a release of tension as the spell took effect. 

Willow did not have to wait long to see the results of the spell. Before her eyes, Max’s long grey waves of hair began to darken, the jet black color restored; the wrinkles smoothed from her skin, and within a matter of moments she appeared decades younger. Willow had encountered a number of spells to restore or preserve one’s youth--so many spellcasters pursued magic for that very reason, after all. She could even still remember three different rituals that she had absorbed from the books of dark magic in the Magic Box. The one that she had just witnessed seemed so much simpler than any of the others that she had heard of; spells of this nature usually involved stealing youth from a sacrifice. But, then again, how many lives had been sacrificed to give the vampire blood such potency? 

Trying to sort through the moral and metaphysical implications of what she had just witnessed was dizzying. Willow turned to leave, returning to her own room within the hotel. She poured herself a glass of water, and sat beside the open window to feel the cool evening breeze, watching palm trees sway in the distance as she was left alone with her thoughts. Her worries about how Xander was faring in his endeavor were completely pushed from her mind. 

Less than half an hour had passed when Willow heard a tentative knock on the door. She did not need to look to know that it was Max. She wasn’t _angry_ with the other witch… she still wasn’t really sure how she felt, actually. 

When Willow opened the door to allow Max to enter, all of those confusing moral quandaries were suddenly forgotten. 

Because… wow. Max was _really_ pretty. 

“Uh… h-hi… um, you can come in. I mean, it’s your hotel, you can do whatever you want I guess…” Willow babbled. 

Max smiled sweetly at her, and crossed the room to take a seat with a graceful swirl of her skirt. She had always been attractive, of course; Willow had been stricken by her elegance. But now that she appeared so much closer to Willow in age, her beauty was impossible to ignore. Willow reclaimed her seat across from Max. There was much more light in this room than there had been when Max and Harriet were performing the spell, and it brought out the warm brown tones of her hair and eyes. Willow turned to gaze out the window once more, as a momentary distraction from staring at Max’s lips for slightly longer than was probably appropriate. 

“You are upset with me,” Max remarked.

“No,” Willow replied. “I’m just… disoriented. I… still haven’t decided how I feel, actually.”

“You disapprove of the nature of the spell that I performed.”

“I disapprove of making blood pacts with demons. That’s what you just did, isn’t it?” Willow immediately felt a bit guilty about how harsh her words sounded. 

“The bond between Harriet and myself was forged many years ago,” Max replied. “I am over three-hundred years old. I allow myself to age because it is a welcome reminder that I am still human, even after everything I have been through, even after all these years. But I fear that I will need the vigor of youth to face whatever it is that lies ahead.”

It should have been more shocking to learn Max’s age, but Willow had held her suspicions, and it certainly made things make much more sense. 

“But there is… some magical bond between you two?” Willow was still trying to fully understand the ritual she had witnessed; she had never heard of vampires being able to share their power with a mortal without actually turning the person into a vampire. Then again, there were a lot of things about vampires that still remained a mystery to Willow even after studying them for over a decade, like why they could be photographed even though they didn’t have a reflection, or whether there was actually any sort of deeper theological implications to their aversions to holy water and crosses, or if the impulse to wear lots of black leather was a compulsion that was part of the universal vampire experience or just a really weird coincidence. 

“Yes, of a sort. It is much less… _intense_ than the bond between vampires of the same bloodline, from my understanding. But I can still sense when she is near, and draw strength from her when it is needed for spells.” She gave a shrug. “There are many things about it that I do not fully understand myself. Anne was the one to figure out that it was even possible.”

Somehow, Willow didn’t imagine that Anne would have any more answers about it than Max did. She didn’t seem like the forthcoming type, anyway. 

“I’m sorry, but I’m still feeling pretty weirded out by all of this.” The weirdness wasn’t lessened by the fact that she had difficulty making eye contact with Max without feeling that funny fluttering in her chest that she used to experience when she was sixteen and Xander offered to carry her books for her. “It’s just, you know. Vampires have tried to murder me a whole lot of times. I can’t imagine ever trusting one like that.”

“You said that your best friend is dating a vampire,” Max observed.

Okay. Yeah. Willow may have mentioned that. “Well, yeah… But… that’s Spike. It’s kinda a unique situation.” It helped that Spike was fully aware that Willow would literally turn him inside out if he ever harmed a hair on Xander’s head.

“My relationship with Harriet is also a unique situation.” There was no spite in Max’s voice; she said it in a gentle but matter-of-fact tone. “I have known many vampires in my time. Very few of them have ever been considered friends. And of those few, Harriet is the only one I could ever trust in this way.” 

Max gave a wave of her hand and a bottle of wine along with two glasses appeared on the table, conjured from the kitchen below. Willow was flattered by the gesture, and may have been blushing a bit as she accepted her glass. Max turned her gaze out the window, watching the swaying palm trees just as Willow had been earlier; the breeze rustled her curls as she sipped from her glass. “Perhaps it is time for me to be more forthcoming with you.”


	6. Storms

**NASSAU**

**1720**

When Max looked back over the course of her life, with the clarity of hindsight, and tried to trace the path of events, she would say that the strangeness began in those weeks in Boston when Anne was still nearly too injured to move. Max would visit Anne in her room and notice that objects had been moved, even though it did not appear that Anne had moved from her bed and hadn’t had any other visitors in that time. 

Anne often seemed distant. Sometimes they sat together under the stars in complete silence. Anne looked up at the sky as though searching for meaning in the distant scattering of lights. 

Sometimes Anne would say that it was going to snow, although there was not a single cloud in the sky. Within days they were beset by a blizzard. 

Max mentioned this to Jack once. He confessed that such things had happened before--Anne predicting a storm when he and Charles had not yet seen any change in the wind. 

It was the damage to her hands that seemed to bother Anne the most. Even when it healed, Max knew that the scars would last a lifetime. Anne was known for her skills with her blades, but right now it seemed entirely possible that she would never have full functionality in her hands again. She would never admit that, of course. 

One day, she found Anne seated at a table with Jack’s inkwell and a pile of paper that she had apparently torn into smaller squares as neatly as she could manage. She was slowly and deliberately drawing on one of the pieces, what appeared to be a picture of an overturned cup. It was difficult for her to hold the pen, having to steady it with both hands, but it did not discourage her. It looked like she was creating a deck of cards. Max did not pry. 

Max did not pry when she found Anne sitting on the floor near the window in the dead of night, the moonlight shining on her as she surveyed the cards laid out in front of her.

Max did not pry after they had returned to Nassau, the issue of governance resolved, and Anne took to taking walks out to the beach, simply staring out at the water for hours. Max had long suspected that Anne’s relationship with the ocean was something that she would never truly understand.

Max did, however, choose to pry when she watched Anne send a dagger flying across the room to imbed itself two inches deep in the wall. All without actually touching aforementioned dagger.

“Can’t be what I was before. So I’m becoming something else.”

Jack returned to piracy. Sometimes Anne went with him. Sometimes she didn’t. She never said as much, but Max knew that when Anne stayed back in Nassau, it was because her hands were cramping up, or her ribs were aching too much for her to stand. She didn’t like it when the crew saw her like this.

One night, two weeks after Jack had left port, Max awoke to discover that Anne was no longer in bed with her. She found the other woman seated on the porch outside, only in the shirt she slept in, even though the night was quite frigid by Nassau’s standards. 

“What are you doing out here?” Max asked, already wrapping a blanket around Anne’s shoulders.

“Jack is dead,” Anne stated blankly. 

Max didn’t understand how Anne was so certain of this. But when Anne just _knew_ something, Max believed her.

* * *

It was over a week later that Max spent a long day reviewing accounts with Featherstone. She did not like leaving Anne alone for so long. Every day she anxiously awaited news of the capture or execution of Calico Jack, but no one had heard a thing. A storm had rocked the harbor for nearly three days, preventing the comings and goings of ships. The weather had calmed for several days, but late in the afternoon Max could hear the winds picking up again outside of the governor’s mansion, and it seemed that the weather was turning foul once more. 

The night had grown dark by the time Max finished the paperwork. She had sat down to share dinner with Idelle when a man arrived with a message for the governor. A strange ship had blown into the harbor, and it was causing quite a commotion in town, since it did not appear that anyone was manning the vessel; it had narrowly avoided crashing into another ship as it blew into the harbor. The man explained how he had spotted the vessel through his spyglass, and that lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship.

Max had hardly waited for the man to finish his explanation of events before she was hurrying to the harbor, determined to get to the scene before scavengers reached the ship to try and claim whatever they could find in its hold. She had the fortune to arrive in time to join the first party to board the ship and survey the scene, though the men in the group insisted on going ahead of her to ensure no fiends hid within the ship’s hold.

When they signalled that things appeared safe, Max stepped onto the deck and went to examine the corpse at the helm. In his hands was a crucifix, the beads wrapped around both wrists and the wood. It struck her as unusual given that this was a ship of the British navy, on which most of the crew would likely be Protestants who shunned such idolatry. 

Some of the men had already headed down below deck to search for any signs of life, and one of them emerged to seek her attention.

“You should come see this, Miss.”

He led her to the captain’s quarters. On the desk was a log book that recounted the events onboard the ship over the past days, but that was not what interested Max in that moment--her attention was drawn to the substantial amount of blood that stained the floor of the cabin. Someone had used it to draw a large symbol on the floor: a skull with two crossed swords beneath it. 

It wasn’t dry yet.

“Take me back to shore. Now.”

Max hurried back to land, hurried back to the house she shared with Anne.

She was overwhelmed with anxieties as she made her way through the house and found it empty, but great relief claimed her when she found Anne seated just outside of the back door.

“Jack and Charles were here,” Anne stated plainly, looking off into the distance. Max followed her gaze, afraid that she would see them standing there--why was she afraid?--but spotting no one, only the trees swaying in the wind. 

“Charles Vane?” Max replied, incredulous. Anne nodded.

“Jack is like him now. An undead thing.”

Max frowned. “Come inside and warm up,” she insisted, taking Anne by the arm. At that moment, the urge to be safely indoors was almost overwhelming. She wasn’t sure why she felt so strongly that they would be secure inside of the house, but she wasn’t going to resist the impulse. Anne complied, and sat down while Max began preparing tea for the both of them, hoping to calm her nerves. Anne’s words had not entirely made sense, but that did not stop Max from feeling the same sense of dread that she had experienced when on board that mysterious ship.

When the tea was ready, Max seated herself close to Anne, her skirts pressed up against the other woman. 

“Tell me what happened?” she asked softly.

Anne was gazing into her teacup. She did not look up, but gave a small nod. She seemed to take time to gather her thoughts before speaking.

“After Charles died… something chose him. Made him a vampire.” Max had heard the word before, was vaguely aware of myths about the dead rising to drink the blood of the living, but had never taken such things seriously. But if Anne was convinced of it, Max was not going to doubt her. “He came back for Jack. Changed him.”

“Changed?” Max repeated. 

“He’s cold now, like a corpse… Different in other ways too. Don’t seem so different at first, but… there’s something wicked about him.”

The thought was sobering. Jack had always been cunning, but as far as Max could tell he did not revel in death and destruction, he understood when it was necessary in his line of work but was not known for excessive brutality when compared to other men of his profession. That was what made him a business partner that Max was willing to rely upon. Now he was an unknown variable. 

“Did he try to hurt you?” Max asked, unable to hide her concern.

Anne looked offended by the question. “No. Fuck, no, course not.” After a moment, she seemed to forgive Max for making such an assumption; the tension dissipated from her shoulders. “He wanted to turn me. To make me like them. But he said he wouldn’t do it unless I said yes.” Anne fell silent. She took a long drink from her cup. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “Maybe it was stupid to turn him down. They’re stronger now, faster, real fucking predators. Damn near impossible to kill.”

Max wasn’t sure how she felt about the matter. It was a lot to process, suddenly being asked to believe in things she had thought impossible. “Why did you say no?” The question was devoid of judgement, only the desire to understand Anne’s decision.

“I don’t want to be a dead thing.” There was something in Anne’s voice that suggested that she was haunted by the concept. Max felt a deep pang of sympathy, and in that moment resolved to support Anne through this no matter what strangeness it may entail. She raised a hand to gently run her fingers through deep red hair, brushing it out of Anne’s face. She knew that she could not fully understand what this meant for Anne’s relationship with Jack; once, she had to consider the possibility of Jack’s death meaning Anne’s destruction as well. But these new circumstances were something that Max could not possibly have anticipated, and she had no idea what Jack’s state of undeath would mean for Anne. 

“I am truly sorry that you should be burdened with such painful choices,” Max said softly.

“Don’t be sorry,” Anne replied. “I think… it’s good for him. Seeing him with Charles again… he was so fucking _happy._ I didn’t think I’d ever see him that happy again. And immortality is everything he always wanted, ain’t it?”

When they went to bed, Anne lay with her head resting against Max’s chest, lulled to sleep by the sound of her heartbeat.


	7. Vampirate Fanservice Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely the most explicit chapter, both in terms of violence and sexual content. Vampires are horny.

**SOMEWHERE IN THE ATLANTIC**

**1720**

**[ONE WEEK EARLIER]**

It had been nearly a week since Jack had gotten a proper night’s sleep. The voyage had been going remarkably well, all things considered, so the crew had no clue what was eating at the captain. The most plausible guess was that he was forlorn that Anne had not accompanied them on this trip, and that would not be an entirely incorrect assessment. As Jack had been preparing to cast off for this voyage, Anne had come to inform him that she would be remaining in Nassau with Max; it was not the first time, but there had been a sorrowful look in her eyes when they said their goodbyes, as though there was something final about them. Every voyage had its dangers; every other time that Anne had stayed behind, for whatever reason, there was always the distinct possibility that it would be their last time seeing one another. This time, however, Jack could not shake the feeling that there was something Anne wasn’t telling him, something she knew that he didn’t, but he couldn’t fathom her motives. 

But that wasn’t the culprit behind Jack’s internal turmoil. The truth as to what was causing his unrest was something Jack was not prepared to admit even to the most trusted members of his crew. Every night for the past week, as soon as sleep had taken him, his dreams had been consumed by vivid images of Charles Vane--some memories, some seemingly the fabrications of his subconscious. It had been nearly four years since Charles’ death. In the immediate aftermath, Jack had frequently experienced nightmares of his partner’s trip to the noose, but they had faded with time. The sudden return of these visions years after the fact made the wound feel fresh and raw all over again.

They were not all visions of Charles’ demise, however. Sometimes he and Charles were caught up in the rush of battle, side by side as they had been so many times in the past. Sometimes it was simply the two of them in Charles’ quarters on the _Ranger_ , drinking together and laughing over something or other. But the most vivid of them all were the dreams where he found himself on an empty beach late at night, with the moon shining brightly over the water, and then Charles was there in the distance, waiting for Jack. Something about the scene had struck him as odd, and it had taken several days for Jack to realize what was so unusual about the dreams, but when the realization had suddenly struck him in the middle of the day, standing out on the sun soaked deck, he had felt a sudden chill wash over him: The beach that kept featuring in his dreams night after night was nowhere that he had travelled with Charles, it was the shore of Skeleton Island.

To be haunted by that island more than three years after the fateful confrontations that had taken place there was strange enough on its own. And then unexpected powerful winds had blown the ship off course, and Jack had been faced with the sudden, staggering reality that he was now closer to that damnable island than he had ever ventured in the time since that day. 

The treasure was still there, the cache of gems that had belonged to _him_ , he was certain of that much. He had no interest in pursuing it, however; with no way of knowing where Flint had hidden it, it would undoubtedly take months to comb the island with no guarantee that they would be able to locate it at all. Setting his crew on the task of treasure hunting would undoubtedly be folly. 

However, Jack also knew that there was a freshwater spring on the island. It would not be unreasonable to make a stop to take on water; their current supply might be stretched for long enough to make it back to port, but given the unpredictable nature of the recent weather, Jack was willing to err on the side of caution. It was completely reasonable to plot a course for Skeleton Island. It wasn’t like the place was actually cursed. 

Jack shook himself free of these thoughts as he overheard the pronouncement that their destination had been spotted ahead. Followed by murmurings amongst the crew. Jack drew his spyglass and quickly spotted the reason: a merchant vessel was anchored near the island, and as they approached, it appeared that no crew members were on deck. Normally, he would approach such a situation with extreme caution, fearful of plague or entrapment. But the island was not in the direct path of trade routes, and the exact location of it was known to few, so it was highly unusual for a merchant ship to come here at all. Jack’s curiosity was overwhelming; further, he felt almost compulsively drawn to this mysterious ship, though he could hardly explain why. He could rationalize it with the logic that the ship may very well be here to smuggle valuable cargo; that was one of the few explanations that Jack could come up with as to what could have possibly motivated the vessel to come to a place like this.

It did not seem that the entire crew shared Jack’s desire to investigate this matter; superstition was not rare amongst sailors, but as of late it seemed that Nassau was abuzz with even more harrowing accounts of alleged encounters with spirits or monsters or curses than Jack had ever been privy to in his years at sea. Thankfully, it wasn’t too difficult for Jack to find enough volunteers to join him in investigating the ship, even if it took a motivational speech on his part. 

There were still no signs of life aboard the vessel as they drew alongside it. They exercised caution when boarding, but it turned out to be unnecessary--there truly were no living souls left of the crew. And it did not take long to find evidence that it was no plague or famine that had struck this ship. There had been substantial bloodshed here; stains across the deck and even dried upon the helm. But there were no bodies in sight. A sense of forboding had overtaken the men who had joined Jack in boarding this seemingly deserted ship, and they had already begun debating the merits of simply turning back without further investigation. Jack was not discouraged, however. The mystery was only drawing him deeper. He held his sword and pistol at the ready as he made his way below deck, though he somehow doubted that he would need to use them.

Once his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the ship’s interior, it did not take him long to find a body of one of the ship’s crew. He lay face down; Jack prodded at the body with his foot, rolling him over to get a better look at the corpse. The man’s throat looked as though it had been torn open by some wild beast. He found himself remembering Henry Avery’s tale of his own visit to Skeleton Island: discovering the Spanish ship whose crew had apparently eaten each other alive. Surely this was not evidence that the same thing had occurred here; still, it was deeply unsettling.

It wasn’t long before two of Jack’s shipmates had joined him, and the sight of the body only unnerved them further. As much as Jack wished to continue his investigation of this ship, it would seem that his men could not tolerate this any longer, and he begrudgingly agreed to allow them to abandon this venture. 

They returned to their own ship, and speculation as to what kind of mysterious beast could have caused such carnage was running rampant among the crew almost immediately. Many of the men expressed the desire to be far, far away from this place. Jack regarded this as superstition; he knew what men were capable of, and was not ready to admit that whoever had killed the crew of that ship was not human. Charles would have scoffed at the notion that the island itself was cursed. Jack was not yet ready to abandon the task that had brought them to this island in the first place. They would sail around the island and anchor where they were out of sight of this ghost ship, and hopefully that would assuage the crew’s fears until they were ready to set sail once more. 

Finding volunteers for the boarding party had not been too difficult a task, but convincing four men to join his landing party took some serious persuasion. The island was foreboding enough under normal circumstances; the notion that some strange beast could be lurking among the trees was clearly plaguing the minds of even the most hardened crew members. But Jack refused to be dissuaded from the task that had brought them here, and his own conviction to go ashore was enough to persuade a few loyal men to accompany him. They landed on the beach without incident, and began the hike across the island to the spring. The men moved with an urgency in their steps, intent on completing their job and returning to the ship as quickly as possible. These were brave men who had taken numerous prizes under his command, but they were skittish now, constantly looking behind them as though afraid they were being followed, jumping at every rustle of leaves or call of a sea bird. 

Jack didn’t blame them; he felt a strangeness in the air, as though there were some _presence_ nearby, something he had not felt the last time he had come here. He found himself replaying the scenes from his dreams over and over again in his mind as they trekked across the island, able to picture Charles’ features with perfect clarity even though he had not been able to look upon his face in years. He thought he had been doing so well in his efforts to move on, to _live_ , but the past kept threatening to enfold him in nostalgia’s shroud. 

His reveries were shattered as they reached the location of the spring. A small wooden stockade stood before them, having been constructed around the spring. Surely that had not been here the last time that Jack visited this island; he was certain he would have noticed something like that. But who would have built such a structure?

It was the distant sound of a cannon shot that distracted him from this mystery. Jack was already running toward the beach before he had even fully processed what was happening, his men close behind him. The moment he had a clear sight of the water, his spyglass was in hand, and he was cursing under his breath. A British warship had seemingly materialized from nowhere, and was already engaged in battle with those of his crew who had remained on the ship. Had the slaughter of the merchant vessel been their doing? For some reason, he was convinced the two matters were unrelated. Either way, he considered their situation utterly fucked. There was no way that the shore party could row back to the ship quickly enough to be of any use in this battle; the outcome of whatever was occuring onboard was completely out of his hands.

It felt like hours that the fight continued, though it was likely only a span of minutes. Even from this distance, Jack knew when his crew was defeated. It was likely that the navy had come here pursuing them specifically, and when they realized that Captain Jack Rackham was not amongst the captured members of his crew, it was quite likely that they would come searching for him. With great displeasure, he decided that they should return to the spring and take shelter inside of the stockade for the night, and hoped that he would have some stroke of inspiration for how to resolve this mess. 

They made their way to the shelter and sorted out shifts for the night watch. It was miserable to think of what the rest of the crew might be enduring, how many may have been lost already. No one in the group felt particularly talkative, and a long while was spent sitting together in silence. The state of affairs had apparently distracted the men from their earlier superstitions, but it was not an improvement by any means.

“I’m going to take a piss,” Jack announced. It was growing close to dusk, and he needed an excuse to reprieve himself from the gloomy silence. He headed up a hill, finding a spot where he had a view of the ocean. He found himself facing the abandoned merchant vessel, whose mystery he had almost forgotten about in his preoccupation with the more pressing dilemmas he had been emburdened with since their arrival. 

It was nearing sunset, and the sky was spotted with clouds that sailed across the horizon at a rapid pace. The winds had picked up quite a bit since their arrival, giving further credence to Jack’s suspicions that a storm would soon be upon them. A sudden downpour in the middle of the night seemed entirely on trend with the way his luck was going. His melancholy was mildly improved by the sights before him, at least. 

The sun cast orange streaks over the waves, and the sky was tinted in shades of pink and purple. The clouds glowed gold and orange, their shapes every-changing as they were blown across the horizon. The merchant ship, site of so much unknowable violence, made itself part of this picturesque scene; in that moment it was easy to pretend that all was right with the ship as its masts swayed with a hypnotic rhythm as the vessel was rocked by the waves. 

Jack couldn’t say how long he spent in that spot, enthralled by the sight of the setting sun like a moth about a flame. For seemingly the first time in weeks, his mind was clear and calm. Before him, palm trees rocked in the wind, and birds occasionally dived through the air across the scene. For all he knew in that moment, his entire crew could be dead save for the four who had chosen to accompany him onto the island, but nature continued onward in all its boisterous hues with no concern for the woes of men. He could not take his eyes away from the scene until some time after the last sliver of the sun had finally slipped away, and darkness had begun to descend over the island. 

With some reluctance, Jack turned to make his way back to the stockade. The sky was a vibrant shade of deep blue, which still cast enough light for him to see by as he navigated his way through the foliage. He was nearly back to the group when the evening’s silence was broken by the sudden sounds of struggle. He squeezed his eyes shut and silently cursed--he hadn’t expected the British to come after them so quickly, and that had been a mistake. But he had no way of knowing that the warship carried redcoats; he should be flattered that they were so determined to hunt him down. He could see glimpses of vibrant red, and was thankful that he had worn a deep green coat that day rather than something more flashy; there were enough trees between him and the others that he could likely escape without being spotted if he was careful enough. He assumed that his men had been surrounded and ambushed without warning. The stockade should have provided a strategic advantage, but only so long as his men were diligently keeping watch. And from the sounds of things, they had not fared well. Rushing headfirst into combat would likely be suicide. 

The gunshots and sounds of swords clashing ended almost as quickly as they began. Jack crouched down low, and strained to hear voices. He could hardly make out any of the words, but did manage to catch his own name. He was certainly their quarry, and they weren’t going to give up the search for him yet. With a deep breath to steady himself, he slowly began to retreat from the stockade, stepping carefully through the foliage to make as little sound as possible. He held his sword but left his pistol holstered since the sound of it would instantly announce his location to anyone on the island. 

He concealed himself among the trees a fair distance from the stockade, and took some time to try to clear his head. He knew there were caves on the island, perhaps he could take shelter there until the British gave up their search and departed. But for how long? It could be years until another ship came to this island. The moon began to rise overhead while he sat and contemplated. The moon was nearly full, which provided plenty of light for navigating the island’s difficult terrain, but clouds occasionally swept over the moon, casting the landscape in ever-shifting shadows.

A sudden, strangled cry could be heard, followed by a few surprised shouts. Had one of his crew members survived and succeeded in catching their opponents by surprise? He found himself close to the spot that he had earlier watched the sunset. From his position on the hill, he had a better view of the island’s terrain even as he crouched amongst the ferns. He caught a glimpse of red that quickly disappeared as clouds covered the moon; when the moonlight returned, it was gone. Then there was movement much closer to him, and he could make out the figures of three men. They moved like they were afraid. Soon they were close enough that he could practically read their lips, though they had taken no notice of him. He knew that he could shoot one of them straight between the eyes before they would have any chance to react, but he wasn’t ready to betray his location just yet.

Before he had time to contemplate any further, there was a blur of movement followed by screams as one of the soldiers was quite suddenly no longer in one piece. There was a delay as Jack’s brain processed the fact that he had been bisected at the waist by a sword that moved faster and with greater force than any human could possibly possess. 

And then all was shadows once more.

When the moonlight finally returned, casting silver illumination over the scene before him, it revealed that another one of the redcoats was being attacked by an uncannily familiar figure. There was something so panther-like in the movement--something so inhuman. But there was no mistaking who it was. As impossible as it seemed, Jack knew with every fiber of his person that this was no stranger. His breath caught in his throat as he watched the assailant vanquish his prey, seemingly tearing the soldier’s throat open with his teeth--which only added to Jack’s incredulity at the situation.

As stunned as he was, he wasn’t going to let this moment go to waste; Jack stepped forward and slammed the point of his sword through the third soldier’s chest with practiced precision. The man had been far too distracted to even notice Jack’s approach, and the blade must have struck his heart since he fell slack almost immediately. Jack let the body fall to the ground with a dull thump.

He turned to face his unexpected savior.

The other man’s back was turned to him. Even from behind, Jack would recognize him anywhere. 

“Charles?” It was barely a whisper, but apparently he was overheard. Charles turned to face him, and there was something strange about his face, except no, now there wasn’t; the ridges of his forehead smoothed out and Jack wondered if it had been a trick of the light. 

And then they were both moving, meeting halfway. Jack’s hands were on his arms, his chest, his cheeks, confirming that the man before him was solid and not a hallucination. “Charles… how… you’re dead… This can’t be real...”

“I’m really here, Jack.”

A sob escaped him, and then they were kissing, holding each other close, and Jack knew this was _real._ He didn’t care that there was blood dripping from Charles’ beard, staining Jack’s mouth as they kissed; he was familiar enough with the taste of copper to be unphased. Charles was cold, unnaturally so, as though he had just stepped out of the ocean, but Jack was too grateful to have the solid weight of him in his arms to be bothered by it. When Jack had to give himself chance to breathe, Charles’ fingers were brushing over his cheeks, and the way that Charles was looking at him caused his heart to skip a beat. 

“How is this possible? Max… Featherstone… so many people saw you die…”

“You should know by now that it takes more than death to keep me down,” Charles replied, smirking a bit. 

The laugh that escaped Jack sounded tinged with the slightest hints of hysteria. Nothing short of a miracle could have made this reunion possible. But they were not men worthy of such graces; Jack was not a pious man, but he had resigned himself many years ago to the thought that if Hell was real, it was where he must surely be destined for. 

Charles looked suddenly distracted, as though he had heard a sound, though Jack had not noticed anything unusual. “There are two more men on the island,” Charles explained, his voice low. He pulled away from Jack and drew his sword, making his way towards the beach. He didn’t make a sound, and moved with the confidence of someone who had no difficulty seeing where he was going even when the path was completely dark. Jack followed a yard behind him, taking care to step wherever Charles had stepped so as to not cause any noise. 

It was not long before they caught sight of the men. Then Charles was moving faster than Jack thought possible, relentlessly cutting the men down, staining the sand with so much blood. Jack watched in awe. Charles Vane had been a frightful enough opponent before; now, Jack could only imagine how terrifying it must be to face him in combat. He took no pleasure in the sight of gore, but could not help but be impressed by the ease with which Charles dispatched these soldiers. 

Charles looked quite satisfied as he returned to Jack’s side, wiping his blade clean and sheathing it. He then reached to grasp Jack’s scarf, pulling him into an impassioned kiss. Jack’s eyes fell shut as he obligingly parted his lips, fingers tangling in Charles’ hair. It went on for some time, leaving Jack breathless when they finally separated. Charles tilted his head to press a kiss to Jack’s jaw, then his throat, then he was burying his nose in the curve of Jack’s neck and inhaling his scent deeply. In the past, it had been rare for Charles to behave so affectionately with him, but Jack didn’t find it unusual given the circumstances.

Charles led the remainder of the trek down to the beach, and Jack obligingly followed. They ended up on the sands across from where the merchant vessel was anchored; Jack felt rather confident that he now knew what fate had befallen the crew of that ship. They chose a place to sit on the beach, side by side, leaving no space between them. Jack took comfort in the solid feeling of Charles pressed against his side. 

“I want to tell you what happened to me. But I’m going to have to ask you to believe.”

“To believe in what?” Jack replied.

“To believe in things that you cannot.”

It was a strange proposition. But Jack trusted him implicitly. 

And that was when Charles unfolded his tale, describing to Jack how he had faced the noose, only to find himself rudely awakened in a swamp several weeks later. How it had been an ancient, undead creature with a mouth full of fangs and a wrinkled face almost resembling a bat who had been responsible for the magic ritual that had been used to resurrect him--an unorthodox means of raising someone as a vampire, but Charles’ sire was willing to put in the extra effort for this occasion. Charles gave passing mention to some alleged prophecy being the motivating factor behind the ancient vampire’s determination to raise Charles into undeath, but was unwilling to elaborate on the matter; unsurprising to Jack, given Charles’ opinions on matters of ‘fate’. 

Charles explained to him how he was now ‘undead’, unable to be killed save for by very specific means, how he subsisted off of human blood, how he was allergic to sunlight--rather inconvenient for their line of work, though the superhuman abilities he now possessed seemed a worthy exchange. He had bided his time in the bayou, near the newly founded settlement of New Orleans, taking the opportunity to learn all that he could of his new condition from the elder vampire that Charles called his ‘sire’. There were other vampires in their group as well, and Charles sought all the knowledge he could gain on other varieties of demons, witches, ‘vampire slayers’, all manner of supernatural phenomenon that neither of them would have ever believed in the past. Charles described these things to Jack as casually as he had once gone over maps with his quartermaster, or explained the various intricacies of captaining a ship. 

When Charles’ patience with his sire was finally worn thin, he beheaded the older vampire. He stowed away on ships to travel the Caribbean, gathering news of the fates that had befallen his former comrades and foes alike since his execution in Nassau. Jack provided further details where he was able, and was relieved that Charles did not express disapproval of any of his actions--he seemed pleased that Jack had succeeded in surviving this long, above all else, and particularly satisfied with the thought of Jack killing so many men in his name. 

The moon was high in the sky by the time they had shared their tales with one another. Sleep was still far from Jack’s mind. Charles revealed a small boat he had hidden nearby, and they rowed out to the merchant ship--Jack found himself doing very little of the work; Charles’ unnatural strength propelled them through the water at an impressive speed. Jack soon found himself on this ship for the second time that day, though it seemed like it had been so much longer since he had last stepped foot here. 

They made their way into the captain’s quarters, where Charles immediately produced a bottle of brandy; it seemed that the late captain of this ship had expensive tastes, which Jack certainly appreciated. Jack was glad to have a reasonably comfortable place to relax, removing his coat, laying his weapons aside, and loosening his tie before seating himself at the desk and enjoying a drink. Charles disappeared deeper into the ship for a few minutes, soon returning with some food he had scavenged for Jack, including chocolate and an orange that had been part of the ship’s cargo. Jack accepted this gratefully. It was strange that Charles was not eating with him, but the other man indulged in the brandy and began to smoke while Jack finished his meal. They fell into easy conversation, topics less serious than their discussion on the beach, and it almost felt as though they were back on the _Ranger._

As Jack poured another glass for himself, Charles idly picked up Jack’s dagger, turning it over in his hands, looking at it thoughtfully. Almost as though he was considering how many men Jack had killed with this very weapon, how many throats he had slit, how many times he had snuck up on a man and slipped it between his ribs with precision. He was still holding it as he moved to sit on the bed. Jack crossed the room to join him, taking the dagger from Charles’ hands and setting it aside, then meeting his companion’s eyes. 

“Earlier, when I first saw you… your face was different.”

Charles nodded. “It does that, when I hunt.”

“Show me.”

Obligingly, Charles allowed his face to slip into his demonic features. Jack was fascinated by the sight. Charles was still so damn beautiful. He leaned in close, looking into Charles’ strange golden eyes, letting his fingers brush over the ridges of Charles’ forehead, his cheekbones, his lips which parted to reveal sharp fangs. Then Jack was closing the remaining distance between them, his lips brushing against Charles’ softly, carefully. Charles placed his hands on Jack’s hips, pulling him closer; Jack did not hesitate to straddle Charles’ waist. Charles let his features smooth once more, only so he could deepen the kiss. A low sound escaped Jack’s throat as he felt so many emotions suddenly catching up with him, and then he was kissing Charles desperately. He did not notice the presence of tears on his cheeks until he felt Charles’ thumb running over one of his sideburns, brushing the wetness away. 

In their days together on the _Ranger,_ there had been rare occasions that they had been intimate--Jack was usually otherwise occupied with Anne back in those days, but sometimes during the long weeks or even months at sea, Charles needed to work off some tension, or became worked up after a heated battle, and Jack was more than happy to make himself available to his Captain. They were discrete about it back then; sometimes Anne even took it upon herself to guarantee their privacy from the rest of the crew. There were enough rumors about Jack’s proclivities without granting any credence to the speculations, and he couldn’t abide the thought of anyone assuming that he had gained his status as quartermaster by any means other than his own intellect and hard work. 

But in the weeks after Jack had claimed the Urca gold and the alliance between the two of them and Captain Flint had been formed, something changed. Charles considered his relationship with Eleanor a thing of the past, once and for all, and Jack’s relationship with Anne was shifting into something new--strong as ever, but different. And he found himself looking at his relationship with Charles in a new light as well. He was no longer Charles’ subordinate, but his equal, an accomplished captain in his own right. And he felt as though Charles was looking at him differently as well. When they fucked in Jack’s bed in the once-Governor’s mansion, or in the depths of the fort surrounded by piles of Spanish gold, it wasn’t just out of convenience; there was something between them that they refused to openly acknowledge. Charles could have been fucking practically any woman in Nassau; they owned a damn brothel, but it was Jack’s bed that Charles kept visiting time and time again during those weeks. They were both acutely aware of the fact that they could be overwhelmed by the wrath of two empires at any moment, and every private moment they were able to share felt precious and fleeting. 

The news of Charles’ death made Jack curse himself for never speaking his feelings aloud when he had the chance. But he knew how Charles felt about displays of sentimentality. 

But in that moment, on a deserted ship in a dead man’s cabin, Jack didn’t care.

“I love you so fucking much, you bastard…”

“Shut up, Jack.” But he was smiling, and the look in his eyes alone was enough to make Jack’s heart melt. And then his hand was doing something very distracting between Jack’s legs that had him suddenly far too preoccupied with the fact that they were both wearing too much clothing to continue his emotional confessions.

Once undressed, Jack found that he didn’t mind that Charles was so cold; his own body felt impossibly warm, and the coolness of Charles’ hard muscles pressed against him created a contrast that was strangely pleasurable. They were both desperate to be touching each other, to feel their bodies moving together, but there was no rush to it. Charles took time to enjoy every sound he drew from Jack, the way that a man who was normally so eloquent was reduced to wanton pleasure and occasional profanity. 

And when Jack was finally crying out his name as his back arched and his climax overwhelmed him, Charles buried his fangs in Jack’s throat and drank deeply. 

“O-oh… fuck, Charles…” he gasped, belatedly realizing that he was tilting his neck to give Charles better access, tangling fingers in his hair, encouraging… whatever it was that was happening. Some part of his mind recognized that he should be concerned about how much blood he was losing, but he didn’t want it to stop. For years, Jack had been intimately aware that he had narrowly escaped death on so many occasions; he was accustomed to the thought that his end could come at any moment, whether by sword or bullet or noose. If this was how he was going to die--with Charles Vane drawing the life from him in a manner so much more tender than any of the other deaths to his name--he could hardly bring himself to object. It was obvious how much Charles was enjoying this, and he occasionally let low sounds of pleasure escape him, muffled against Jack’s throat. Jack felt himself growing drowsy, but refused to let unconsciousness take him, refused to miss a moment of this sensation. 

After what seemed like an eternity, but was likely only a few minutes, Charles reluctantly stopped drinking from Jack and raised his head. Jack blinked at him tiredly, surprised as he felt cold metal pressed against his palm--the hilt of his own dagger, he realized as he closed his fingers around the familiar weapon. Charles guided his hand until the point of the blade was pressed to the vampire’s chest. In that moment, somehow, Jack understood exactly what Charles wanted him to do. With a movement of his wrist, he drew a cut several inches long across Charles’ chest just below the collarbone. It began to bleed freely. Without hesitation, Jack pressed his mouth to the wound, his eyes falling shut as he drank.

The blade fell aside, forgotten. 

There was something intoxicating about Charles’ blood; it somehow tasted of power and darkness and _Charles._ It was completely overwhelming and he knew that he could not resist it even if he were to try with all of his willpower, but he didn’t want to fight it, he wanted to surrender himself completely to it, and so he did. Jack could feel Charles’ fingers in his hair, pleasantly rubbing against his scalp, encouraging. He let his teeth lightly scrape against the cut, and was pleased by the way that Charles groaned in response. Jack felt unconsciousness threatening to take him, but he didn’t want this to end. He could only stubbornly will himself to stay awake for so long, however, and soon he was sinking into blackness, comforted by the cool press of Charles’ body against his own and the rocking of the ship beneath them.

As he faded into unconsciousness, he could have sworn he heard a faint, “ _I love you, Jack._ ” But maybe he imagined it.

* * *

[ **GOTH INTERMISSION** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtBSgqPq_UY)

* * *

When Jack awoke, it was not peaceful; a myriad of sensations had suddenly overtaken him; he saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; it took long minutes to distinguish the various senses. Once he had processed his surroundings, he understood that Charles must have carried him down to the lowest level of the ship. There was no light whatsoever, but Jack could see his surroundings clear as day. He could hear the waves lapping against the ship, the creaking of the masts and yards high above him. There were other sounds too, unfamiliar ones, and it took him some time to realize that it was the sound of fish swimming outside of the hull of the ship. The realization amused him.

As he recovered from the sensory overload and his mind began to clear, he became aware of myriads of horrible fancies crowding upon his mind--all of them connected with death, with blood, and pain, and trouble. He felt strong, and noted that all of his old aches and pains accumulated from a lifetime of work and battles were now gone. He was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running through his mind, an unknown freedom from the weight of his conscience. He knew himself in that moment to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, connected to some greater force of evil that enveloped him and could be felt in every fibre of his being; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted him like wine. 

Jack moved to stand, and noted that he was fully, immaculately dressed--Charles must have clothed him before carrying him down to this part of the ship. He raised a hand to his own face, feeling that his forehead was ridged in the same way that Charles’ had been. He carefully traced the shape of one of his own fangs with his tongue. This was… new. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and was eventually able to will his face into reverting to human features. It seemed that it would take some practice before he really got the hang of it. 

Charles was nowhere to be seen, but Jack was unbothered by that; he could _sense_ the other man’s presence on board the ship, a fact which filled him with immense pleasure. The connection between them was now something metaphysical that he never could have imagined, something that felt so real and nearly tangible. He followed that invisible thread, now, making his way through the ship, rising through the decks. At some point he realized that amidst the cacophony of scents that he was processing--the timber and tobacco and dried blood, canvas and gunpowder and brine--he could smell Charles as distinctly as if the man was right there beside him, even though there were still two decks separating them. There was so much more dimension to Charles’ scent than he was previously capable of distinguishing, and he felt compulsively drawn to it.

A thick blanket of clouds stretched out across the night sky. There was no questioning that torrential rains were soon to come, but the storm had yet to break. The moon and stars were nowhere to be seen. Charles stood at the bow of the ship, his gaze cast out over the water toward the island and where Jack’s ship and the warship were still presumably anchored. As Jack approached, Charles turned to face him, and Jack decided that he looked more breathtakingly gorgeous than ever. He closed the distance between them, taking Charles’ face in his hands as he kissed him unabashedly. He wanted to thank Charles for this wonderful gift he had been given, but he knew that Charles would refuse to hear it, so he would just have to show his gratitude in other ways. Jack was unable to resist the urge to bury his nose against Charles’ throat and inhale his scent deeply--he suddenly understood why Charles had done the same to him the night before; he wondered if it had sent the same thrill down his spine as Jack experienced in that moment, or if that was something related to this new bond that was formed now that they shared the same blood.

“How do you feel?” Charles asked, sliding an arm around Jack’s waist. 

“Amazing,” Jack replied, grinning at his companion. “... Hungry,” he added after a moment’s consideration. 

It was an understatement; the gnawing need that had flared deep inside of him was unlike any he had experienced before. He had been on ships that were becalmed before, had spent weeks at sea with scarce rations; the pangs of starvation paled in comparison to what he was feeling now, as though a red haze was clouding his mind and making it difficult to focus on much other than this drive to feed. It was no mystery to Jack that it was blood that he was craving--images kept flashing through his mind, memories of all of the times he had slit men’s throats and witnessed the way blood gushed and spurted from them. He vividly recalled every time that he had felt another man’s hot blood spatter onto his face, how the captain of the _Goliath_ had drenched Jack in blood from the deep gash in his throat as he struggled for his life, how it had felt when James Bonny’s blood had spilled over his hands.

It was more than just the blood that he craved. He wanted to see the look that men got in their eyes the moment they realized they were about to die. He wanted to smell their fear, to feel them struggle, to revel in their pain. He wanted to fuck Charles senseless--but the hunt came first. 

Charles smirked, seeming to have been expecting the answer. “What do you hear?” he asked, gesturing toward the island. 

Jack turned the direction that Charles indicated and concentrated; it did not take much effort for him to figure out what Charles was alluding to. “There are six men on the island,” he replied. He was somewhat surprised by this, given how dark it was.

“Most of the crew was out there all day, looking for Calico Jack and whatever ‘beast’ slaughtered their shipmates,” Charles explained, his amusement at their expense obvious. “Those fuckers got lost a few hours ago. Think we can catch them before they get back to their ship.”

Jack felt his fangs emerge.

* * *

It felt like no time at all before they had caught up with the small party of men that trekked across the island. The men had not been planning to remain on the island past dusk, and were ill-prepared to find their way in the darkness. They had to move slowly due to the lack of moonlight. Jack was entranced by the sounds of their heartbeats, so impossibly loud even as he watched them from over fifty yards away. 

It felt remarkably natural to move silently through the shadows, drawing closer to the man in the rear of the party. He had fallen behind the rest of the group, making Jack’s goal so much easier. Charles stood back, intent on watching, for now. 

With newfound preternatural grace, Jack easily snuck up on the man, pinning him against a tree forcefully enough that he heard a rib crack, and slamming a hand over his mouth to keep him silent as he yanked the man’s head to the side and sunk his fangs into his throat. It all came to him so instinctively that it felt almost too easy. 

Jack had to suppress a groan as his mouth was flooded with hot blood. It streamed down his chin; he would have to practice doing this more cleanly if he didn’t want all of his clothes stained, but in that moment he hardly cared. His eyes fell shut as he drank hungrily; his victim struggled against him; Jack felt a heady pleasure at just how easy it was to overpower this man who was notably more muscular than Jack himself. He fed until the man fell slack in his arms, and Jack let the body slump to the ground. 

Charles was standing only a few feet away, and Jack felt a surge of lust as he realized that Charles had watched every second of it. Jack grabbed the other man by the front of his shirt and pulled him into a hungry kiss; Charles didn’t object at all to the fact that Jack’s fangs were still present. The only thing that succeeded in distracting Jack from their embrace was the sound of the other men shouting their now-deceased companion’s name; it would seem that they had finally noticed his absence. As much as Jack wanted to indulge his lust then and there, their hunt was not over yet. His thirst for blood had been sated, but his hunger for pain and violence was not yet quelled. Charles was clearly in agreement on the matter; he gave Jack a teasing slap on the ass before turning to pursue their prey.

With faint amusement, Jack recalled how he had once felt an intense sense of foreboding from this very island. He knew now that there was nothing for him to fear here. He and Charles were the most dangerous things in this place.

* * *

They picked off two members of the party amidst the trees, and caught the other three on the beach just as rain began to fall in heavy drops. There, Jack had taken joy in testing out his newfound abilities. He had not been renowned for his skills in combat like Charles and Anne, but now when he crossed swords with an opponent he found himself moving too fast for them to possibly match his blade. And when there was only one man still breathing, injured and bleeding on the sand, fumbling with a pistol that Jack simply kicked aside, it was _so easy_ for Jack to slide his blade through the layers of muscle and bone and separate the man’s head from his body. 

When human, Jack had killed countless men, but he had never revelled in it. He saw it as an unfortunate but unavoidable aspect of his occupation. Sometimes he even took grim satisfaction in it. But he had never truly _savored_ it.

Now, unburdened of his conscience, he felt a moment of perfect clarity of purpose as he surveyed the carnage they had unfolded upon this beach. Finally, he was able to truly appreciate the art in desolation like never before. 

And Charles was looking at him as if he was the most beautiful thing in the world.

He stepped forward and grasped Jack’s wrist, the hand which still held his sword, and raised it to slowly lick the blood from the blade. 

Jack felt his lust flare up to completely consume him.

It was unlike anything he had experienced while human. He was completely unable to feel ashamed of his appetites, utterly without a shred of self-consciousness; he wouldn't have cared if his entire crew were there to see him. All that mattered in the world at that point in time was the hunger he felt for Charles now that his other hungers had been satiated. 

Jack understood Charles’ distaste for the concept of prophecies, of the idea of “destiny”. He could not trust fate to deliver him anything; he was responsible for creating himself. Captain Jack Rackham was the product of decades of work, of struggle against impossible odds on so many occasions. But there on that beach, as they were consummating this new stage of their relationship, as lightning flashed over the restless ocean and Jack was able to appreciate the movement and forms of it with new eyes that took in every detail with such remarkable sharpness, and Charles was biting his throat from behind and Jack discovered that his newfound appreciation for pain also included being on the receiving end of it, in that moment he could not help but feel as though maybe they were fated for this. It felt as though every pitfall he had overcome, every strange turn of luck, every victory or betrayal had somehow led him to this point, where he was here and reunited with Charles Vane and together they would create new tales to be fearfully told by sailors in the dead of night.

* * *

The sun was rising; Jack could feel it in his bones. It was a strange sensation. Thankfully, there would be no need to hide from the daylight; the storm would not be abating anytime soon; churning grey clouds blanketed the horizon and blocked out the sun. He was glad that they did not need to leave the captain’s quarters for the dark recesses of the ship. They had returned to the merchant vessel sometime after midnight--the rain had grown heavy enough that it was becoming a nuisance. Even if the cold no longer affected him, it was annoying to have water dripping in his eyes when he was trying to appreciate the sight of Charles spread out beneath him on the sand, head thrown back in pleasure as Jack took his own turn in roughly claiming his mate.

The turbulent waves were causing the ship to pitch beneath them, but Jack was pleasantly unbothered by it. He stretched out in the bed beside Charles, feeling wonderfully sore, and raised his arm to examine a bite mark that Charles had left on his wrist, marvelling at how it already looked several days healed in spite of the fact that it was only a few hours old. He rolled onto his side and let his fingers trace over one of the cuts he had left on Charles’ chest; the original one from when Charles sired him was already a pale, faded scar; there were more recent additions that Jack had left sometime shortly after they returned to the ship, when he pinned Charles to the bed and rode him hard and began to appreciate the newfound strength in his thigh muscles. As his fingers mapped the pattern of thin knife cuts, Charles let out a low chuckle.

“You know, there’s a time I would have killed you for the audacity of that, _Captain Rackham._ ”

Jack didn’t try to hide his smugness. His hand trailed upward and he let his thumb circle over a bite mark on Charles’ throat.

“Oh, I’m quite aware.” He met Charles’ eyes. “You were hardly objecting at the time.”

“No objections. I liked it.”

A low growl escaped Charles’ throat when they kissed, a sound that the human throat was not capable of making. Jack had very much enjoyed discovering what new sounds he could draw from Charles, a subject that definitely required further investigation. But another matter pressed upon his mind at the moment.

“I imagine this means my formal retirement from captaincy,” he mused. 

Charles rolled his eyes, even as he ruffled his fingers through Jack’s hair in an affectionate manner. “You had a good run.”

“Mm, yes, I suppose.” He’d had several impressive additions to his resume since the defeat of Woodes Rogers, even if it was difficult to top the capture of an entire galleon of Spanish gold, short-lived as it was. But he did not appreciate the idea that his crew had likely been put to the sword since their capture; he found that the thought of those men’s deaths did not bother him in the same way that it once would have, but he did not suffer slights against the name of Captain Jack Rackham. He and Charles intended to ensure that no one on that warship would live to tell the tale. 

His response apparently was not satisfactory to Charles, as he found himself being roughly shoved back against the wall. It was sudden and forceful enough that it would have knocked the breath out of him, had he been breathing. “Don’t sulk,” Charles chided before biting down on Jack’s throat with blunt teeth, earning a rather undignified groan. “You’ll be dragging me into some new scheme of yours in no time. I’m counting on it.”

Jack did not try to hold back his grin. “You missed my schemes?” He felt almost giddy when he considered all of the possibilities for the two of them, the ways in which he wanted to test the limits of his new abilities. For years they had lived every day with the knowledge that their lives could be cut short at any moment, but now they were faced with the prospect of eternity, and Jack felt inspired like never before. 

Charles pointedly looked down. He raised an eyebrow, amused. “Again, Jack?”

Jack followed his gaze, down the length of his own body. He was getting hard again. “Huh. Look at that.” 


	8. Loose Ends

**NASSAU**

**1720**

The cave was Jack’s idea. It was where he and Anne had temporarily hidden with their laundered portion of the Urca gold after they had blown a hole in the side of the fort, he had explained. 

Anne would not be joining them this time, however. She had made it clear that she had no desire to become a vampire. Charles freely admitted that he did not understand her reasoning-- she said that she didn’t want to be a “dead thing”. He had no complaints about his state of undeath; the benefits far outweighed the inconveniences. And despite Jack’s mourning of the loss of his captaincy, he had professed to Charles that he felt as though his turning was the greatest gift that the universe could have bestowed upon him--true power and immortality and this bond between them that had been consecrated in blood and death, all things that Charles knew that Jack had always longed for, whether or not he was fully aware of it in the past. But they both still held too much respect for Anne to go against her wishes in this matter, even if they could not fully comprehend her reasoning. She was a true warrior who had earned Charles’ esteem many times over, and the bonds that had been forged between the three of them were things that could not be easily dismissed even by demons. 

Charles could only imagine how difficult it must have been for Jack to resist the desire to drink from her; he had entertained the idea of waiting a week or so before turning Jack, to be able to take his time to appreciate the taste of his blood while it still ran hot, but once they were face-to-face it had taken tremendous willpower to suppress the impulse to sire him right there on the spot. He knew innately that Jack would make a formidable vampire, and the moment that he could smell Jack’s blood, hear the beating of his heart, the instinct to claim his mate had nearly overwhelmed him. He suspected that Jack must have felt very similar impulses towards Anne, a longing to know what it was like to hunt with her, to feed with her. Charles could tell that it bothered Jack that Anne wished to retain her mortality, that she would remain susceptible to illness and injury and aging while the two of them would remain unchanging over decades and centuries. But Charles also knew that this would not spell the end of their partnership, just an unexpected complication; Anne was fully capable of taking care of herself, and he suspected that some unorthodox resolution would come of this, as always seemed to be the case where Jack and Anne’s relationship was concerned. 

After disembarking the warship, Charles and Jack had gone together to find Anne. After the initial reunion, Charles had eventually decided to give them some privacy, making the trek to the cave. He had plenty of time to settle in before Jack arrived, in large part because there was very little settling in to be done--he had found a relatively flat section of the cave and laid out a blanket to create a makeshift bed, which is honestly more than he probably would have bothered with if Jack wasn’t going to be joining him. Charles wasn’t sure how long he would be waiting, so he opted to make himself comfortable. They had brought a small wooden chest full of supplies they’d pilfered from the ship, and he rifled through it to find a large wine bottle; it had been part of the British captain’s personal stash, and he fondly remembered how Jack had dumped half the contents so that he could replace it with blood directly from the captain’s throat. 

He reclined on the blanket and took a swig from the bottle, enjoying the rich flavor of the wine and blood mixture, and allowed himself to indulge in vivid memories of their time on the warship. They had kept their presence a secret for the first few days, hidden in the depths of the ship with little to do to entertain themselves but to kiss for hours on end, or refamiliarize themselves with each other’s bodies, inasmuch as the limited space would allow for. Even just having Jack’s body pressed flush against his own for hours was satisfying in its own way, and being stuck together in cramped spaces didn’t feel claustrophobic in the way it once would have. Once the ship was halfway back to port, they began to pick off the crew over the course of days, until the captain and his few remaining men were truly terrified of the unseen monsters plaguing them, fearfully looking over their shoulders at all times, jumping at every sudden creak of the mast or rustle of the sails. Charles enjoyed seeing how the aura of terror that permeated the ship had delighted Jack beyond measure, and made their pleasure so much more potent when they finally closed in on the final crew members and were able to take their time and savor the kills. Charles took another drink from the bottle and thought of how gracefully Jack had moved through the rigging, how he wielded his dagger with even more precision than before, how he had devised some truly inventive manners in which to kill a man--it gave Charles no small amount of satisfaction to consider just what other sorts of things Jack’s mind may come up with. 

It was perhaps an hour until Jack arrived. This was the furthest they had been apart since Charles had turned him, and he was pleased to observe that he could still sense Jack’s presence even when there were several miles between them. He had known about the connection that would be formed between them, in theory, but experiencing it was something he could not have possibly prepared himself for. He was able to tell when Jack was drawing close to the cave, and closed his eyes and inhaled deeply as Jack’s scent became discernable. Charles hadn’t bothered with candles or a lantern, but he could still see Jack with perfect clarity as he approached. 

“How’d it go?” he asked, holding out the wine bottle in offering for the other man. Jack gladly accepted it, taking a swig and then setting it on the wooden trunk, followed by his hat. 

“Well enough. She’s standing firm with her decision.” He gave a slight shrug, then set to the task of removing his weapons, then coat, then waistcoat and belt and sashes, taking care to fold each article of clothing and piling them on top of the chest. “Tell me, Chaz, did you… _sense_ anything unusual, when we went to see her?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. Magic, probably. It was different from what I feel around you. It felt… brighter. Alive.” He gave a gesture of his hand that he sometimes made when he was at a loss for the proper words for something. 

Charles nodded in a considering manner. He wasn’t surprised that Jack had picked up on something like that; the other man had always been incredibly observant, that was one of the things that had motivated Charles to draw Jack into his confidence in the first place, all those years ago on the _Ranger_ when Jack was still relatively new to the crew. Entrusting Jack with knowledge of his plans and strategies was far more practical than keeping any secrets from him, since he had a tendency to notice when his captain was doing precisely that. 

“You think it has something to do with Anne?”

“Yes… I think she has power that even I was unable to perceive before,” Jack replied, looking thoughtful. “I think she is only now beginning to understand it herself.”

This was certainly something that Charles hadn’t considered as a possibility, but it made sense in some odd way. Perhaps for the immediate future, Jack and Anne each had their own paths ahead of them as they grew into their new abilities, but they were bound too closely for the separation to last long--even Jack’s undeath could not change that. 

“It’s not so bad in here. Less depressing than I remember,” Jack remarked about their surroundings, apparently ready to change the subject. “Just needs a bed, maybe some candles.”

Charles chuckled at that, before removing his shirt and tossing it in Jack’s direction, then stretching out and folding his arms behind his head, enjoying the way that Jack openly admired the sight of him. Jack folded the shirt and set it alongside his own clothing, taking another swig from the bottle before removing his own shirt. He held it up and frowned a bit as he took in the sight of the bloodstained state of the once-pink garment. Even in the dark of the cave, they could both clearly tell that it was beyond salvaging. 

“I’m starting to think that Teach was onto something, wearing all that black,” Charles mused. Jack grimaced at the idea, which made him let out another low laugh. 

“I’m not ready to abandon all fashion sensibilities just yet.” Jack folded the stained shirt and added it to the pile. Charles would never understand Jack’s preoccupation with his wardrobe, but he remembered the day that Jack had shown off his first newly tailored coat purchased with the Urca gold, the way he had carried himself with a newfound confidence that Charles found surprisingly attractive--one of the many reasons that he had found his way into Jack’s bed on numerous occasions during those all-too-short months before _their_ Nassau was lost forever. 

“There’s something I’ve been wondering about, darling…” Jack retrieved the wine bottle and stepped closer to Charles, standing at the foot of the blanket that he reclined upon. 

“Yeah?”

“On the ship… that was _my_ flag that you drew.” Just as they reached Nassau harbor, right before they prepared to jump from the ship and swim to shore, Jack had found Charles in the captain’s cabin, carefully crafting a signature in blood.

Charles knew he’d bring that up sooner or later. He smirked. “Thought you’d like that.”

“Of course I do.” Jack moved closer and slowly, deliberately, placed one boot-clad foot on either side of Charles’ hips. He stood over Charles, raking his eyes over his features, looking as though he was trying to discern something. “But _why_?”

Charles reached out to let a hand rest on Jack’s calf, slowly running his fingers over the smooth leather of his boot. That was all the prompting Jack needed to set the bottle on the ground beside them and then lower himself down to straddle Charles’ lap.

“Don’t make sense for us to have different flags. I like yours. We use yours.” Charles made each statement matter-of-factly. 

Jack blinked. Took a moment to process Charles’ response. A grin slowly spread over his features. “ _Chaz_ … That’s remarkably romantic of you.”

“Fuck you, Jack.” 

In spite of his words, he was satisfied that Jack was just as flattered by the gesture as he had expected him to be. He meant what he had said; Jack’s flag was pleasing to the eye, and Charles found something quite appealing about the design. There was more to it than pure aesthetics; Charles was proud of Jack’s legacy, proud of the part he had played in shaping it even before he had become Jack’s sire. Clasping a hand at the nape of Jack’s neck, he pulled the other man into a slow, deep kiss, their tongues teasing against one another, Jack settling his hips more firmly against Charles’ own as desire began to stir in both of them. 

There were very few men who had ever inspired lust in Charles Vane, and out of them all, Jack stood in a league of his own; his unfaltering loyalty and devious mind had somehow enthralled Charles in a manner that no one else could ever hope to replicate, even before this bond between sire and fledgeling had been formed. Charles had refused to turn any others before he and Jack had been reunited; he had been determined to make Jack the first ever since he had learnt that he had the ability to bestow the gift of vampirism on others. It was worth the wait to see that look of devotion from golden eyes. 

Jack began trailing wet kisses down Charles’ throat, over his collarbone, down to his chest. He was in no hurry; now that Jack was completely without inhibitions, he seemed to enjoy taking every opportunity to lavish attention over every dip and curve of Charles’ muscles. And Charles enjoyed watching him. 

“I’ve had something on my mind too,” Charles stated.

“Hm?” Jack replied, glancing up at Charles through thick eyelashes but not faltering in his attentions to Charles’ left pectoral. 

“On the island. Before you arrived. I found a body, been there for a while. It was pointing at something, like someone had posed it deliberately.” By this point, Jack’s curiosity had been piqued enough that he had stopped. “Didn’t think too much of it at the time. Not ‘til after you told me that Flint hid the treasure on that island. I think he must have put the body there, to mark its location.”

Jack looked thoughtful. “When would he have had the time to do that, though?”

It was a good question. The only explanation that Charles could come up with was that Flint must have returned to the island at some point over the past few years. But that was no easy task; sailing there would require a crew of six people at the very minimum, and Flint’s days of captaincy were just as surely ended as their own were. It seemed as though Flint had somehow found a way to simply materialize on that island, found a way to wrap up all of his loose ends through sheer force of will. It sounded preposterous, but it was certainly no more unreasonable than the notion of Charles Vane rising from the grave and Jack Rackham cheating the hangman permanently. 

“No idea. But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.”


	9. Shipwrecks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes an original historical Slayer, and the (non-graphic) death thereof.

**NASSAU**

**1722**

Word spread of the capture and execution of Captain Jack Rackham. Max had to admit that she was impressed by how effectively he spun the myth of his demise. It seemed that she and Anne were the only people who knew the truth of what had become of Jack Rackham and Charles Vane. That did not stop rumors from spreading throughout the Caribbean, men who claimed to have seen their ghosts. Perhaps twice a year, Max would learn of another ship that had been found off the coast of Florida or run aground on Saint-Domingue, the entire crew slaughtered or missing entirely. The taverns were abuzz with speculation about who or what could possibly be responsible, but Max did not need to wonder. 

In the past, Max had not paid much mind to the superstitions of sailors. That had changed. Now, those were among the sort of rumors that she kept tabs on. Most of it was rubbish. But every once in a while, something of interest would arise. 

The first solid information came after several months, when an unfamiliar merchant crew came into port. A few days earlier, a Port Royal judge had been found brutally murdered, and it was the subject of considerable gossip. One of the men from this new crew was overheard insisting that vampires must be the culprits. “ _Damned bloodsuckers are why I left Paris_.” The next evening, Max found this man and invited him to share a drink with her. She asked him to tell share with her all he knew about vampires; most of it was consistent with what she had learnt from Anne, but she did manage to learn a few new things--that they were vulnerable to crosses and holy water, stakes and fire and decapitation; that they could create as many offspring as they desired; that the nature of a person was fundamentally changed by the transition, and even the most gentle of individuals would gain an appetite for cruelty and destruction. 

It was more confirmation that Jack and Charles were truly without conscience now. She had seen firsthand what they were capable of when they still had souls. She was not so certain that she wanted to see what they were capable of without them. 

But Anne still cared for them. And in their own way, they must have still loved her too. 

She didn’t talk about it, but Max knew that the vampires visited her from time to time. There were nights when Max woke well after midnight to find herself alone in bed, and Anne would not return until dawn. There were times that Anne disappeared for several days, and would return wearing a new coat, or with intricate braids in her hair that she never would have bothered styling herself. Once, Anne had handed Max a silk purse containing an ornate necklace beset with huge, glittering emeralds; it was something she imagined being worn by the ladies of Versailles. Max could not bring herself to wear it. But she didn’t refuse the gift, either.

Sometimes, Anne received letters. They never had a signature, but Max didn’t even need to inspect the handwriting to know who they were from. Every so often she was tempted to read them; Anne didn’t make any effort to hide them from her. But somehow it still felt as though it would be a betrayal of her trust. Max resisted the impulse. Even if she were to scour the contents of every letter, she knew that she would never be able to comprehend the true significance of the words; they were for Anne alone to decipher.

Slowly, Max had worked to regain Anne’s trust. And after Jack’s turning, they only grew closer. Anne opened up to her more often--which, for Anne, meant it was still a rare thing, but Max was touched every time that she was considered worthy of Anne’s confidence. 

On a warm evening, Anne had taken her down to the beach, and they lay side-by-side and watched the stars together. Anne had pointed out some of the constellations, telling Max the names of them; she wondered if that was something that she had learnt from Jack, for navigating out in the vast open ocean. It became a recurring activity for them, gazing at the night sky together. 

One night, several months into this new hobby they shared, Anne had broken the night’s silence.

“We were becalmed once. Hadn’t eaten nothing in 12 days. And I swear, I could hear the stars singing. Sometimes I can almost hear them, if I listen real careful.”

* * *

On an oppressively hot day nearly two and a half years after the warship had drifted into Nassau harbor, two new faces arrived on New Providence Island. They looked painfully out of place. One was a middle-aged man with a polished English accent, sweating profusely in his dull black woolen suit. His companion was a girl who couldn’t have been any older than seventeen, with light brown hair and a dress that suggested she was from somewhere in eastern Europe, perhaps Russia. They had a great deal of luggage with them, including several large chests full of books; later, the men who had carried them from the ship to their accommodations would complain that he hadn’t tipped them nearly well enough for the work, but were impressed by the way the girl had assisted by single-handedly carrying one of the chests inside. 

The man, whose name Max learnt to be Lionel Appleby, carried a letter of introduction which he presented to Featherstone; he made it quite clear that they wished to stay in guest rooms in the Governor’s mansion--Nassau’s inn would simply not be acceptable accommodation for his ward. Featherstone was happy to oblige. 

Max found herself incredibly curious about these visitors. She would not be left wondering for long; that same day, Mr. Appleby sought her out by name. It was certainly an unusual request, as there were few individuals who were fully aware of just how much authority Max had over Nassau. But that was not the reason he wanted to speak to her.

“It is my understanding that you were well-acquainted with the pirates Charles Vane and John Rackham.”

Max was taken aback by the statement, unsure how this man could have possibly come across that information. 

“I knew them, for a time,” she replied, careful not to betray any emotion. 

“We have come here to hunt them, and end their reign of terror once and for all,” Appleby stated with complete confidence. Max decided he was a very foolish man. 

“I am sorry, Mr. Appleby, but you must be mistaken. Those men have been dead for years.”

And then Appleby had proceeded to explain the concept of vampires to Max, in a manner that she had found more than a little patronizing. She feigned ignorance of their existence the entire time, and took the opportunity to begin prodding him for as much information as he was willing to share with her. He explained how the girl, Euphemia, was something known as the Slayer, how she was endowed with superhuman abilities that allowed her to eradicate vampires and other demons; he explained that he was her Watcher, an expert in all sorts of lore pertaining to the supernatural, who assisted in her combat training and researching any foe she may come across; he explained that they had come to the Bahamas because half a dozen ships had their entire crew slaughtered and all evidence pointed to vampires; that there had been numerous claims of sighting of ‘the ghost of Charles Vane’; that the scenes of numerous slaughters had been signed with a skull and crossed swords. He explained that he hoped Max would be able to provide any sort of helpful information that would aid in their mission to hunt down and ‘slay’ the vampires in question.

“I am sorry to tell you, Mr. Appleby, but I am afraid I cannot help you. I have no idea where they might be, if you are even correct in your assumptions that Charles Vane and Jack Rackham have somehow risen from the grave. And I am sorry to say it, but I pray that you do not find them. This pursuit of yours is folly. I am sure that Miss Euphemia is very proficient in her work. But, should you be correct, these are not common vampires you are after. Their reputations as pirates were well-earned, and you say that they are stronger now, faster, capable of greater cruelty. Asking that girl to fight them is to send her to her death.”

The Watcher’s expression turned sour. “I see. Well, thank you for your input, madame. Perhaps Governor Featherstone will be more _helpful_ in this matter.”

(He wasn’t.)

* * *

It was several weeks before there were any signs of Jack and Charles’ whereabouts; Max suspected that they didn’t tend to stay in any one place for long, and had been hunting all over the Caribbean, only returning to Nassau so frequently so they could visit Anne. She had a few guesses about where they tended to hide out during the daylight hours, but she kept those suspicions carefully guarded, and had no desire to investigate the matter.

When she had told Anne about the Slayer, Anne displayed no concern for the vampires’ safety whatsoever; anyone who tried to deliberately pick a fight with them was a “fucking moron with a death wish”.

It wouldn’t have bothered Max so much if she did not find herself endeared to the girl against her own better judgement. Euphemia barely spoke any English, but she was fairly fluent in French, which had led to Idelle awkwardly asking Max to speak to the girl on her behalf on several occasions. The handful of conversations they had shared had shown Max that Euphemia was quite intelligent and charming, someone she could almost see herself mentoring just as Marion Guthrie had done. Those were foolish thoughts. This girl would not live to see her twentieth birthday. Even if she left Nassau that very day, sailed back to Europe, never set foot in the New World ever again. Euphemia was Chosen, she had a Destiny, she was a lone warrior in the battle against the forces of darkness, and one day her luck would run out and a new Slayer would be called as her successor, and the cycle would repeat itself. 

Max began to feel a deep, smoldering resentment for Mr. Appleby and his ilk at the Watcher’s Council.

And then the day came that a plantation owner and his family were found murdered on New Providence Island.

Charles and Jack were always really creative with those ones. 

When Max entered the governor’s mansion that day, she was greeted with the sight of Appleby sharpening wooden stakes. She didn’t bother to speak to him; she bypassed him completely and hurried to Euphemia’s room, where she found the girl dressed in trousers rather than her usual full skirts--it was clear that she was preparing for battle. 

Max offered a strained smile. 

“Where will you go after this? When you have finished your mission here?” 

“Paris, most likely,” Euphemia replied, turning and taking a seat on the bed, leaving space for Max to sit beside her. “It is always very popular with the vampires. We suspect there is at least one nest dwelling in the catacombs”

That night, Euphemia went out to search the island for signs of her quarry.

And, to Max’s great relief, she returned just after dawn. There was a slash in her sleeve, a shallow cut on her arm, but she was otherwise uninjured.

She explained that she encountered a vampire on the outskirts of Nassau sometime after midnight; that he was tall and thin, with distinctive facial hair; that they had engaged in a swordfight, and she was certain that she was gaining the upper hand, because he had fled the scene and managed to escape her. She had spent the remainder of the night searching for her enemies, but with no luck, so she abandoned the search when the sun rose.

“Good work, Euphemia. We know they’re close. It will only be a matter of time before you catch those fiends,” Appleby declared, giving her an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Max muttered, squeezing her eyes shut in frustration as she processed the news. Appleby looked scandalized by the language; Euphemia concerned. “ _He was testing you._ ” Up until this point, she had struggled to remain positive for the girl’s sake, to try to express optimism. But the reality of the situation was crashing down around her, and this was no longer the time for blissful ignorance. 

“Madame…” Appleby frowned, and looked as though he was going to try to dispute her, but Max did not give him the chance.

“Jack is a good fighter. He would not have survived for so long in his profession if he was not. I am sure that his transformation has made him a formidable foe. But _Charles Vane_ is the one you must fear. He was chosen to be raised as a vampire for good reason. He has always thrived in combat, he craves it. He has killed some of the most battle-hardened men these waters have ever seen and mounted one of their heads on a fucking pike less than a mile from where we are now standing _when he was still human_. And _together_ … You cannot fight both of them at once. It is suicide. And if Charles chose not to engage with you tonight, it was for a reason. Perhaps they wish to lure you into an arena of their choosing. Perhaps they desire to draw this out for some twisted reason. Whatever their intentions, you can be certain that Jack did not let you live tonight because he was _afraid_ of you.”

“If I did not know any better, I would say that it almost sounds as though you _admire them_ ,” Appleby replied with a scowl. 

“There is a ship leaving for Boston this afternoon. If you are wise, you will be on it.” Max turned her back on Appleby, and took one of Euphemia’s hands in her own, meeting her eyes. “You do not have to die here. Please, reconsider this reckless pursuit.” 

Max did not wait for an answer. She turned and left the governor’s mansion. She did not return later in the day to see if they heeded her advice.

* * *

Max busied herself with paperwork until well after midnight; reviewing accounts and ledgers was a useful distraction from the concerns that had been plaguing her. When she finally finished her work, she began her journey back home through the streets of Nassau. The tavern was along the way, and still had a number of patrons, though the numbers had thinned significantly as the night grew late; they would soon close for the night and turn away the remaining stragglers. To Max’s surprise, she could see Appleby seated at one of the tables, finishing his drink and then requesting a refill. Max had never once seen the Watcher drinking alcohol during the entirety of his time in Nassau. She made her way over to his table, and he actually invited her to sit in a manner that was surprisingly polite.

Her warnings had weighed heavily on his mind. But he and Euphemia refused to abandon their mission. 

They sat and talked for several hours, mundane subjects that both knew were just temporary distractions from their anxieties. They stayed after the tavern closed for the evening; Max could do as she pleased, considering that she was the primary owner of the business. Finally, sometime around 4am, Max accompanied him back to the governor’s mansion, not ready to abandon their conversation just yet.

When they arrived at the mansion, Max felt a chill run up her spine. Something was wrong. 

They entered the building, and she spotted Idelle sleeping soundly on a sofa in the parlor. She was breathing deeply and appeared completely unharmed, but it was very unusual for her to have fallen asleep in that spot--ever since she had moved into the governor’s mansion, she had constantly gushed about how wonderful the large feather bed was. With growing concern, Max hurried upstairs. She found Featherstone snoring in bed. Euphemia’s room was empty. Appleby’s room was not.

Laying on the bed, wrapped in canvas as one would prepare a sailor for a burial at sea, was the distinctive shape of a body. 

A strangled sound escaped Appleby’s throat. He hurried over to the bed, drawing a small knife and cutting through the fabric, then grasping it and ripping it open to reveal Euphemia’s lifeless features. He collapsed to his knees at the bedside, wracked with grief, and let out a loud, mournful cry. Max numbly made her way across the room. There was a sealed letter on the bedside table. She picked it up and examined the impression in the red wax. It was a skull and crossed swords. _When did that bastard get a signet made?_

She broke the seal and opened the letter; she knew that Appleby was the intended recipient, she just didn’t care whether or not he was offended that she was the first to read it. She immediately recognized Jack’s handwriting, as though it was not already obvious enough who had written it. Her eyes quickly skimmed over the contents. It was a very detailed description of the fight; it appeared that Charles had done most of the fighting while Jack had simply watched, up until they had decided it was time to finish toying with the Slayer. He praised her skill in combat. He described exactly where her swordsmanship techniques were in need of improvement, detailed the fatal errors she had made. 

She handed the letter to Appleby. 

“I need… I need to leave…” he muttered as he studied the letter. “They got in here once, which means they could do it again… I need to get on the next ship out of port…”

Max sneered at him. “They’re not going to _kill you_. They left that letter because they want you to know that _you failed_. They want you to _live with that failure_.”

Featherstone appeared in the doorway, blinking tiredly, apparently awoken by Appleby’s distressed wail; his face went pale as he took in the sight of the lifeless body on the bed. Max spun on her heel and fixed the governor with an accusatory glare. 

“How did they get in here, Augustus? Who invited them in? You were _specifically told_ that under _no circumstances_ should anyone invite Jack or Charles into this residence.”

“I… I… I’m not sure what happened,” Featherstone stammered. “Jack was here… He just… he ordered me to invite them inside, and I did it… I don’t know why I did it…”

Appleby swore under his breath. “He hypnotized you.”

“ _Excuse me?_ You never told us that he could do that,” Max replied.

“It’s uncommon… I didn’t think… They’re not old enough for that to be a concern…” Appleby muttered.

Max let out a loud sound of exasperation. “I specifically told you not to underestimate them!” She pounded her fists against the wall in frustration, and let her head rest against the cool surface, squeezing her eyes shut as she struggled with the multitude of emotions that were warring inside of her.

“They took my books…” the Watcher numbly observed, seeming to properly assess his surroundings for the first time since his arrival. 

“Of course they took your fucking books,” Max replied, not bothering to face him. “What was in them?”

“Accounts of the lives of previous Slayers… guides to the different species of demons… descriptions of various magical rituals, _damn it…_ ”

“You may as well have personally delivered a devastating weapon into their hands, Mister Appleby.” Max’s patience had worn out. She felt a deep sorrow for Euphemia, but she also felt rage, and indulging in rage was so much more comfortable than allowing grief to take a hold of her. “You will leave Nassau. You will go back to England and tell your colleagues at the Watcher’s Council that they are not welcome here. Fight your demons elsewhere; you say that there can only be one Slayer, and the world is very large. Whatever unnatural threats may come to the shores of New Providence Island, that will be _my_ business, not yours.” 

She did not wait for a response, she simply turned and left the governor’s mansion. She would return to her bed, where Anne was waiting for her, and she would rest, and then tomorrow night she would take matters into her own hands and sort out this mess like she should have done much sooner.

* * *

The ship was in remarkably good condition, considering that it had been beached on the shore over five years ago--one of the numerous casualties of Woodes Rogers’ war against the pirates. One of the masts was even still intact, jutting out from the scene at an odd angle. Over the past year or so, there had been murmurings amongst the sailors about this site being haunted. Max did not fear ghosts; she suspected that the only dead men to be found here were ones that she had once considered allies. 

She stood alone on the beach, a lantern in hand, and surveyed the scene before her. Gathered her nerves. She could have worn a crucifix, or carried a bottle of holy water, but she did not delude herself into believing that they would be anything more than an annoyance to these vampires; besides, she hoped that her choice to come here would be seen as a display of trust. 

Max spent perhaps five minutes in that spot, steeling herself, before finally beginning to approach the wreck. She had only made it halfway across the sand before a figure emerged from the other side of the ship. She recognized Jack instantly, and was relieved to see him rather than Charles, though she suspected that the other man must be close.

“Hello, Max. To what do we owe this visit?”

“Good evening, Jack.” She closed the distance between them, until they were only a casual distance apart. The lantern illuminated Jack’s features with flickering orange light. He was paler than he used to be, but otherwise looked completely unchanged from the last time they had seen one another. He was not wearing his usual layers of clothing, just a shirt, trousers, and boots; he did not even appear to be armed, and Max struggled to remember a time she had ever seen Jack without his dagger at the very least, save for when he was entirely nude. But he had other ways to kill people now. “I thought it was due time for us to catch up with one another.”

That earnt an amused look from Jack. “Yes, I suppose it’s overdue.” He gestured at the ship. “Would you like to come inside, then? I’m afraid it’s less luxurious than the governor’s mansion, but we do have, you know, chairs, at the very least.” 

Max felt some trepidation at the prospect of willingly entering this _lair_ of theirs; she wasn’t thrilled about the idea of having to navigate a shipwreck of questionable structural integrity, among her other obvious concerns, but she had already committed herself to this display of trust. “Lead the way.”

Jack turned and walked around the side of the ship, until they reached a hole in the side of the hull that was just large enough for a person to comfortably climb through. He deftly stepped around the boards and then reached to take the lantern from Max, then held out his free hand for her to hold as she maneuvered her way inside. Once she was comfortable standing inside of the ship, Jack handed the lantern back to her. 

Now that she was able to take a look around the interior, Max immediately realized that they must have done some renovating--removing walls in some places, boarding up any holes in the hull that would have allowed sunlight to enter, making adjustments to the floor so that it was a relatively flat, even surface to walk across, despite the cant of the ship. Jack led the way deeper into the ship, and Max saw that she was effectively in one large room. They had clearly been using this place for shelter on a rather frequent basis; no wonder the sailors of Nassau had begun to avoid this shipwreck if they valued their lives.

There was a table at the center of the room with three chairs around it, just as Jack had promised, and a few large chests nearby. Stacks of books were piled atop the table and chests, with a couple books lying open; Jack and Charles had obviously already begun sifting through the contents of the tomes they had stolen from the Watcher. There were a few bottles as well; Max was not certain that she wanted to know what they contained. And in the far corner, where the lantern’s glow barely reached, was a large nest of blankets and furs and pillows, at the center of which reclined Charles Vane, who appeared to be nude (Max found herself grateful for the fact that the blankets covered him from the waist down, even if she strained to see his features in the shadows). He had a book resting in his lap, and Max noted that both men’s weapons were near where he lay, practically within arm’s reach.

“How domestic,” Max remarked upon the scene, earning a chuckle from both of the men.

“It’s more comfortable than the caves, I will give it that,” Jack replied. He made his way over to the table and took a seat in one of the chairs; Max tentatively crossed over to set the lantern on the table and then sat across from him, her chair angled so that she could see Charles as well. 

“I imagine that you are aware of what prompted my visit.” Max was ready to address business. 

“The Slayer,” Jack stated in response. Max nodded. “You are upset that we killed her?”

Max spoke slowly, choosing her words delicately. “I am disappointed that such an outcome came to pass, yes. I tried to deter her from her course. But she and her Watcher refused to see reason. Regardless, I hope you understand why I am bothered by the death of such a young woman.”

Jack shrugged. “Anne was much younger than her when she joined our crew. She was old enough to fight; she was old enough to die.”

Max sighed, but she did not try to argue with him; she doubted he was even capable of valuing the lives of any humans he did not hold personal affection for, not anymore. “I understand why you did it. She is the one who sought the fight, so I will not fault you for it. I just wished to express that I hope that this does not become a habit.” 

“You’re worried that we’ll start hunting Slayers?” It was the first time Charles had spoken, and Max barely stopped herself from jumping in surprise at the low voice coming from the shadows. 

“I fear that if you continue to draw so much attention to yourselves, you will attract more Slayers, more vampire hunters. More conflict that I do not wish to descend upon Nassau.” She reached to take Jack’s hand in her own imploringly, urging herself to ignore how strange it was that his hand was so unnaturally cold, and pointedly met his eyes with her own--another expression of the trust that she was placing in him, given the knowledge that he was capable of casting a thrall over her. “I have been forced to come to terms with the fact that there are things in this world that have been kept secret from us for our entire lives; realities hidden beneath the veneer of human society; wondrous and monstrous truths that I was ignorant of for so long. It frustrates me more than I can say, knowing that I have lived so long in this world while only perceiving a mere fraction of it. I want to try to understand it all, Jack. So I have come to ask you this, that you do not bring another war to these shores--not while I am still learning what we are up against, at the very least.”

Jack appeared to be considering her words; she took it as a good sign that he did not dismiss her outright. He turned and made eye contact with Charles from across the room, and it seemed as though an entire conversation managed to unfold between them, conveyed only through the arch of an eyebrow, a slight nod, subtle gestures that could have been easily missed; she had witnessed similar exchanged between the two men when they were human, but now there was something almost unnerving about how effectively they could communicate without uttering a single word; if Max did not know better, she would have wondered if their vampirism had granted them some form of telepathy.

“I understand.” Jack finally spoke. He gave Max’s hand a squeeze. “I am still working to process all of this myself.” He released Max’s hand and gestured at the books. “I had no idea that there were so many different types of demons, entire _worlds_ that exist parallel to our own.” Jack reached for one of the volumes, and offered it to Max. The cover bore the title _Bynum’s History of Witchcraft_. “I thought this one might be of interest to you,” he remarked. “You’re welcome to any of them, of course. I was actually going to ask if you wanted to hold onto the whole lot, once we’re done reviewing the contents. This is no place to leave them lying around unattended, and it hardly seems practical to drag them around with us…”

Max curiously flipped through the pages of the book, intrigued by some of the chapter titles. She felt oddly pleased to hear that Jack had decided to trust her with such a matter; it demonstrated that he still held clear regard for her, even now that he was soulless. “Thank you. I would appreciate that a great deal.”

A flash of light from across the room drew her attention; Charles was lighting a cigar. He took a long drag off of it before speaking. “We won’t go looking for Slayers. But if a Slayer is in our territory, we’re going to kill her. And we’re going to enjoy it.”

Jack nodded in agreement, his expression suggesting that he was reflecting fondly upon the battle that had unfolded last night; it made Max feel sick to her stomach, but she fought to ignore the sensation, to maintain her phlegmatic demeanor. Jack looked at her as though he could sense how unsettled she was, in spite of her carefully controlled expression, and flashed her a wicked smirk; damn him, he _enjoyed_ her discomfort. “I suppose we can take a more _subtle_ approach. I don’t mind changing things up. Wouldn’t want to become predictable.”

Charles let out a low chuckle. “You’ve made the point you wanted to make?”

Max had to guess at what “point” Charles was alluding to; she suspected that it might be something about sending a message to other vampires regarding who was in charge around here, considering the way that Charles had referred to their “territory”. 

“I think so, yes,” Jack replied with a smile. 

“So you will stop massacring entire crews?” Max asked tentatively.

Jack shrugged. “I can’t promise that,” he answered. “But next time, we don’t have to leave any evidence. We’ll just, you know,” he gestured vaguely, “sink the ship.”

Well. It was a compromise, at the very least. 

“I appreciate that you have taken the time to hear my concerns,” she replied, pushing her chair back and moving to stand. “I should get going, Anne will be wondering where I am.” She had only chosen not to tell Anne about her intended destination because she knew that Anne would have insisted upon accompanying her, and she had wanted Jack and Charles to know that she did not feel that she needed a bodyguard around them. 

Jack stood as well. He seemed thoughtful for a moment, before grabbing another book and piling it on top of the one that Max was already holding--another volume pertaining to magic. “Here, take this one too.” He picked up the lantern, apparently intent on walking her to the exit. 

The beach seemed so much brighter than the interior of the ship; once Max was standing out upon the sand once more, she felt like she didn’t even need the lantern anymore. Jack stood beside her, and they spent a long moment simply watching the ocean together--the moonlight was glittering on the water, illuminating the roll of the waves. 

“Just so you know,” Jack began to speak, breaking the silence. “My offer to turn Anne… That extends to you as well. Should she change her mind.” The implication was clear--that Max could try to convince Anne to reconsider the prospect of undeath, if that was something that she desired. 

Max wasn’t sure how she felt about being offered such a thing. She would be lying to herself if she did not admit that the power was certainly tempting. But was it worth sacrificing her humanity?

“You have given me a great deal to think about,” she responded. 

“Mm, well, no hurry. I have all the time in the world.”

* * *

The next day, Max wore the emerald necklace. She received many compliments.

* * *

Max’s busy schedule running the affairs of Nassau did not allow her much time to indulge in reading. Particularly to read books whose existence she desired to keep a secret. But that did not stop her from dedicating several hours a night to study every one of the volumes that were once property of the Watcher’s Council. It was three months before she performed her first spell. After six months, Jack began to bring her reagents, miscellaneous spell components that he found while he and Charles were hunting throughout the Caribbean, occasionally stolen from other demons or actual pieces of demon physiology, as disgusting as they were--she had no idea if she would ever be able to use half of these things, but they were rare and valuable enough that they seemed worth holding onto. After nine months, she had mastered nearly a dozen spells, and was quite proud of her progress.

One evening, she moved a few pieces of furniture in the parlor to clear a large space in the middle of the floor. She took a seat and arranged some candles, with a bottle of sand sitting next to her. Anne entered the room and raised an eyebrow as she surveyed the scene.

“What’s this about?”

“Come, sit,” Max requested. Anne looked skeptical, but complied, seating herself on the floor opposite Max. Taking the bottle in hand, Max poured a circle of sand on the floor between them, then set a hibiscus flower at the center. She took Anne’s hands in her own. “We are going to do this together,” she explained. “We will levitate the flower, and pluck the petals from it, one at a time.” 

Anne had never performed a spell with her before. But she did not hesitate or question the request, she just nodded in understanding.

Max threaded their fingers together. “It is a test of synchronicity.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming Soon:  
> \- Violet & Amelia go on a date  
> \- Buffy & Faith beat up some vampires, probably  
> \- Xander has the worst hangover ever and is subjected to male bonding time with Angel whether they like it or not


	10. Zombie Parrot

Hi everyone, sorry for taking so long to update this and to reply to comments! I’m hoping to update more regularly from this point on. I decided to write this chapter as a warm-up before I delve into some more plot heavy chapters (with considerably fewer dicks involved). 

> Several people have asked “will this fic make sense if I haven’t seen _Harlots_?”. The short answer is that I’m trying to make it as comprehensible as possible for people who aren’t familiar with _Harlots_ , since I know that it’s pretty niche and has a considerably smaller fandom than the other series involved.
> 
> Back in the early development stages of this, I tried to see if I could make the plot work without _Harlots_ characters in the mix, but I ultimately decided that I really needed more female characters for specific roles. _Harlots_ also fits very nicely into the timeline I established. I recommend watching the series, especially since there are only 24 episodes total, though I totally understand why some people might be adverse to it, considering that it contains _a lot_ of sexual content, and there’s some subject matter (ie rape) that might be uncomfortable for some people. If there’s much interest, I wouldn’t mind putting together a summary of each season of the show so that people can have more context for these characters & their backstories. 

Since I last updated this fic, I've made [a playlist](https://manabombs.tumblr.com/post/624378181170987008/a-soundtrack-for-my-buffyblack-sailsharlots) and [a timeline](https://manabombs.tumblr.com/post/623744204724633600/a-timeline-for-my-extremely-niche-crossover-fic). (The date I chose for the events of _Treasure Island_ is based on the statement that _Black Sails_ is supposed to take place about 20 years earlier, even though that contradicts with some of the dates that are given in _Treasure Island_.) I've also been busy drawing, so here's an art dump:

[ ](https://imgur.com/dMVlq32)

[](https://imgur.com/1aUneD2) [](https://imgur.com/sUyXzJA)

[ ](https://imgur.com/FxCMWA8)

* * *

**SKELETON ISLAND**

**PRESENT**

When Xander awoke, the first thing he was aware of was the distinct sensation of pressure in his temple that forewarned the kind of headache that was sure to haunt him all day. His mouth tasted as though something had crawled inside and died in there. He felt painfully aware of every single ounce of rum that he had consumed hours ago; just thinking of the liquor was enough to make his stomach twist. Which was a real shame, since it was real premium top-shelf stuff--at least this would be the most expensive hangover he’d ever experienced. A miserable groan escaped him as he gathered the strength to raise his head from the pillow. 

Spike was seated beside him on the bed--he had apparently found a paperback to entertain himself while Xander slept, which he set aside as the other man stirred. Xander let out a grunt in gratitude as he found a perspiring glass of water offered to him once he sat up. He drank half of it in one long draught, then reminded himself to slow down so that he wouldn’t upset his stomach.

“Thanks,” Xander remarked, leaning back against the headboard. The room was almost too dark for him to see his surroundings. There was a large window in the room, but it was covered by heavy shutters that latched firmly into place. Very practical for a vampire residence. “What time is it?” he asked, realizing that he had no idea if the sun had even risen yet.

“A little after seven,” Spike answered, confirming that it was, in fact, daylight hours. Xander approximated that he had been deposited in this room sometime between three and four. He definitely needed more rest if he had any hope of being a relatively functional human being for the rest of the day. But he was also beginning to suspect that he needed to put solid food in his stomach. “Billy said that you can help yourself to anything in the kitchen, if you get hungry,” Spike informed him, as though he had read Xander’s thoughts. 

“Oh, thank god,” Xander replied, already making an attempt to stand. He gripped the bed frame as his legs proved unreliable--he still had an impressive amount of alcohol in his bloodstream, apparently. “I was worried that I’d have to, I don’t know, forage for nuts or something.” Vampires weren’t always great at remembering to stock their pantries for human guests, after all. 

Spike chuckled as he made his way to Xander’s side, placing a hand at the small of his back to offer his support so that they could begin making their way towards the kitchen. 

“Hey, Spike… If I ever try to drink that much again, can you, like, knock some sense into me?”

The kitchen was probably the most barren room in the entire estate, but Xander managed to locate a jar of peanut butter and some bread that was only a little bit stale. He had no complaints; he didn’t think he could stomach anything fancier. Spike let out an impressed whistle as he opened the fridge and eyed the neat rows of bagged blood--human, none of the butcher shop fare that Spike usually had to settle for. Xander knew exactly how expensive that stuff was, and that was without even taking into account that someone had to deliver it to this island in the middle of the damn ocean. 

There was a window in this room that hadn’t been shuttered up for the day; the sun wasn’t facing this side of the house, so Spike was in no danger of combustion. Xander wandered over to gaze outside as he munched on his bread. There wasn’t much to see but trees. Some were reminiscent of those he was familiar with in California, while others appeared more alien. He realized just how curious he was to get a better view of the island in the sunlight. 

“I think some fresh air might help resuscitate me,” Xander mused, eyeing the side door that led outdoors. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, yeah?” 

Spike nodded. “Alright, just don’t wander far, don’t want you gettin’ eaten by some beasty while I’m not around to keep an eye on you.”

Xander rolled his eye at that. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll try not to look too appetizing.”

* * *

The sun was just barely rising above the treeline, causing the trees to cast long shadows. Xander squinted as his eye adjusted to the brightness. A silver fog that reflected the morning light hung over the water and blanketed the lowest points of the island; Xander’s vantage point right outside of the main house put him just high enough on the hill to be clear of the fog. He began following the path toward one of the smaller buildings (he strongly suspected it to be some kind of armory), pausing when he reached a point where he had a clear view of the main house, taking the opportunity to appreciate the sight of it in the daylight. 

The pale pink facade was crumbling and faded in some places, but it didn’t detract from the impressive sight, just added character. Xander found himself becoming more enamored with the architecture every time he looked at it and noticed new details. It seemed like the antithesis of Charles Vane’s ripped jeans and blood-stained shirt and dirt-caked boots. But it also seemed like the perfect home for three centuries worth of hoarded treasure, and he was beginning to suspect that Jack was even more preoccupied with aesthetics than Spike and Angel.

It looked picturesque among the island’s lush vegetation. Yet there was also a constant sense of wrongness about it. A fancy house like this didn’t belong on a remote island in the Atlantic ocean. He was pretty sure that houses just didn’t belong here at all. Kind of like how swashbuckling pirates didn’t really belong in the 21st century. Inside, there had been plenty of distractions to take Xander’s mind off of the spooky vibes that had been bothering him ever since they first reached the island. Now, those sensations were returning in full force. He would have thought that the place would seem less eerie in the daylight. Apparently not. In fact, the way that the sunlight was reflecting off of the fog caused it to occasionally glint in the corner of Xander’s eye in a disorienting manner. The angle of the light hitting the trees made them appear in a stark contrast of light and shadow, and every time that Xander noticed movement in the distance, he found himself tensing for a moment, until he was able to tell himself that it was just trees swaying in the breeze. His impaired vision only made the whole situation more unsettling. It had been five years since he lost his eye, and he had mostly become accustomed to his altered vision, but at moments like this he felt acutely aware of the way that colors seemed just a little off, and the landscape before him appeared slightly distorted as though it was a picture that had been stretched out.

There were even more strange noises than the previous night, too. For the most part, it just seemed to be a wide variety of birds going about their morning bird business. But every so often, one of the cries in the distance would be strange and unrecognizable enough that he doubted that it could have come from any bird. But then again, he wasn’t exactly a bird expert, and some of the species that resided on the island were so foreign from anything he had encountered in California that it was enough to put doubt in his mind. He was mindful to stay on the paved pathways as he wandered around the property; there was something imposing about the hills in the distance, and Xander reaffirmed his resolution not to go exploring the island without at least one of his vampire bodyguards in tow. 

A particularly loud and strange noise prompted him to look about in all directions; he was unable to determine the source of it, but he caught sight of a small group of demons gathered down by the docks. He hadn’t noticed them earlier due to the fog, and the sight of them there shooting withering glances in his direction caused his stomach to twist, and he was painfully reminded of his poor drinking decisions. He offered an awkward smile and a half-wave at the glaring demons, before turning on his heel to head back towards the house. He had to fight the urge to constantly glance over his shoulder to make sure that no one--or no _thing_ \--was following him. Upon reaching the front doorstep, he breathed a sigh of relief. 

And what did that say about him, that he felt so much safer in a house full of mass-murdering vampires than he did outside in the daylight?

* * *

As Xander made his way through the front door, he once again overheard the distinct sound of a bird, but this time it was apparently coming from inside the house. It was enough to pique his curiosity; if this pirate lair actually contained a talking parrot, there was no way he was missing out on that. Walking straight down the hallway, it wasn’t difficult for him to figure out where the sound was coming from: a set of doors was propped open that had definitely been closed off the night before, revealing a room with walls lined with bookshelves and occupied by a variety of potted plants. Unlike the rest of the house that was dark, shuttered against the morning sunlight, daylight poured from this room into the hallway. And when he reached the threshold of the room, he was able to see the source of the light--impressive floor-to-ceiling windows that occupied almost the entirety of the wall opposite the doorway. 

Jack stood near the center of the room, alongside a large green parrot preening on a perch. He was wearing only a brightly patterned silk robe that definitely wasn’t providing much protection from the sunlight. In spite of his burgeoning headache, it didn’t take long for Xander to put the clues together. 

“Is that necro-tempered glass?” he asked, unable to keep the excited nerdery from his voice. Xander didn’t even pause as he strode across the room to take a closer look at the windows that were specially treated to filter sunlight so that it was harmless to vampires, admiring the sheen of the glass. 

“Mm-hm. I’ve been meaning to have it installed in the rest of the house. It’s expensive as shit, which--well, that’s not a problem, obviously. But it’s a real pain in the ass to get contractors out here.”

Xander chuckled at that. “Yeah, I bet.” The glass looked completely normal at first, but when he looked at it from just the right angle he could barely make out a purple-blue sheen on the surface. As far as he could tell, there was no magic involved, just technology that was so state-of-the-art that it may as well have been magic as far as Xander’s comprehension was concerned. “They had this stuff at Wolfram & Hart, back when Angel was running the LA office. Spike told me about it. I never thought I’d have a chance to see it in person, since, y’know, that place is rubble now, and I like to think I’m not dumb enough to ever set foot in one of their other offices.”

“Smart man,” Jack replied, appearing faintly amused by Xander’s apparent interest in the finer details of window installation. 

Finally satisfied with his examination of the windows, Xander turned his attention to the bird. And noticed for the first time that its eyes were an odd, icy shade of blue, and there was a spot on its side where its feathers and flesh had been torn away to reveal rib bones. “Hey, uh, is that a zombie parrot?”

Jack grinned in response. “I try not to use the Z-word. Her name is Captain Flint.”

Xander stepped a bit closer, but was careful to maintain a distance from the bird, suddenly paranoid about the safety of his remaining eyeball. 

“Oh, don’t worry, she doesn’t try to eat animals that are more than twice her size. At least, not anymore.” 

That was enough of a reassurance for Xander to step closer to the parrot. “This is a new one, even for me. How do you even make a bird into a z--uh, undead.”

Jack gave a shrug and a vague hand gesture. “One of the many mysteries of this island. She makes a wonderful pet, though. Hardly ever shits.”

“Flint’s a shit!” the bird squawked, causing Jack to grin. He produced a gold coin from a nearby jar (unsurprising; they seemed to be scattered in odd places all over the house) and held it up to glint in the sunlight, which prompted the bird to repeat with great rapidity, “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”

“ _Incredible._ ” Xander couldn’t keep the goofy grin off his face. Jack offered him the coin, and he replicated the way that Jack had held it up to the light, causing Flint to repeat the phrase several times more. She bobbed her head excitedly at him, and Xander held out the coin to offer it to the parrot, which she did not hesitate to accept. 

He watched her happily toy with the shiny object for a while, before eventually losing interest and beginning to preen her feathers once more. It was about at this point that Xander’s attention also began to wander, and he took a moment to admire the robe that Jack was wearing. The cut of it suggested that it had once belonged to a cartel boss’ mistress or something like that. But the obnoxiously bright floral pattern reminded Xander of one of the shirts he owned--except, like, way fancier. Like this was the original couture version that had inspired a generation of cheap knock offs that had made their way to Xander’s closet. 

The sunlight made Jack look even more unnaturally pale than usual. Not that Xander was checking him out. Definitely not. But it’s not like he could help noticing just how revealing the robe was. Or noticing that there were multiple bite marks on Jack’s neck and chest, in various stages of healing. Xander guessed that most of them were only a couple hours old. He felt a strange pang of envy, so sudden and unexpected that it took him a few long moments to understand what had even caused the reaction. It wasn’t that he envied Jack for receiving numerous fang hickeys from Charles Vane. (As nice as that mental image happened to be, and as much as it caused Xander to wonder just what it would be like to feel stubble rub against his neck right before fangs descended into him--) No, he was envious of the concept of being able to be bitten that many times in one night without succumbing to death by exsanguination. It had been less than a week since Spike had bitten him for the first time, and he was already counting the days until they could safely do that again. 

It was easy for Xander to understand why Charles Vane made him go a little weak at the knees. The effect that Jack had on him was more confusing. It was too early for him to be trying to understand how an evil soulless vampire with funny sideburns could make him so easily flustered. It almost reminded him of--no, he wasn’t going to think about that jerk.

He was staring. There was definitely no way that Jack hadn’t noticed that he was staring. He willed himself to play it cool and return his attention to the undead parrot. She was surprisingly friendly for a zombie bird, Xander decided. 

“Hey, I just thought of something.”

“Yes?”

“You and Vane are vampires. What about Anne Bonny and Mary Read? Are they vamps too?”

Jack looked pleasantly surprised by the question. Xander wanted to believe that he had earned some kind of bonus points in the respect department. 

“Haven’t seen Read since I died,” Jack replied with a shrug, the slightest hint of wistfulness in his voice. “Anne is still human, technically. If you stick around long enough you might get to meet her yourself. She comes and goes as she pleases.” His words were tinged with fondness. “Your friends at the Watchers Council would call her my ‘familiar’, I imagine. Don’t let her hear you say that, though.” 

“Really? Neat.” Andrew was going to be _so_ jealous when he heard about this. (Though, Xander had thought that he had been careful not to mention Andrew, or any other Watchers or Slayers for that matter. Had he slipped up at some point, or had Jack been more familiar with Xander’s reputation then he had let on?)

Flint cocked her head and then began to whistle a short tune, causing Xander to let out a delighted laugh in his surprise.

“I think she likes you,” Jack observed.

Xander grinned at that, feeling oddly proud. “Hey, is it okay if I take a picture? Willow would love this.” When Jack nodded in consent, Xander withdrew his phone from his pocket. As he opened the camera app, he noticed just how many missed notifications there were--a couple from Buffy, even more from Willow. He internally cringed as he realized that he had gotten too caught up in all of the drinking and conversation the night before, and had forgotten to regularly check-in with Willow like he had promised. 

“Oof, I think I’m going to have to give Willow a call and convince her that I’m not dead yet,” he remarked as he snapped a few photos of the parrot.

“I’m afraid that will have to wait. Phones don’t work here on the island; even satellite signals get distorted,” Jack explained.

“Huh. Well, my phone actually works just fine,” Xander replied with a grin. “It’s not exactly on a normal network. Willow set it up. I don’t understand all the magic stuff, personally, but she made sure this thing works anywhere in the world, and the signal can’t be traced.”

“She can do that?” Jack asked, suddenly looking incredibly fascinated by the device, and even a bit impressed. “I didn’t think magic and technology mixed very well.”

“Oh yeah, Willow was a computer whiz way before she started casting spells. I don’t think there’s a system in the world that she can’t hack these days.” Xander couldn’t help but sound incredibly proud when he spoke. 

There was something devious in Jack’s eyes, in the way that he smirked. Xander decided that Jack was handsome in a roguish kind of way when he smirked. Considering his attraction to Spike, of all people, it didn’t seem like there was much point in denying that maybe he had A Thing for guys who could smirk like that.

He’d try to blame the hangover for the fact that he didn’t even notice when Jack produced a knife, until the blade was suddenly only a hair’s breadth from Xander’s throat. He wasn’t even sure where the knife had come from; there was no way that Jack had been hiding that in that robe of his. Xander’s eye widened as he realized that the very sharp blade was close enough to shave. And that Jack’s body was only inches from his own. 

“I hope that I don’t need to worry about you sharing the location of this island with any of your little Slayers, do I?” Jack asked, the unspoken threat evident in his tone of voice. Xander internally cursed his own foolishness for not realizing that Jack would view his possession of a magically enhanced cell phone as some kind of deception. Even if it was a small infraction, most vampires wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to threaten someone, just for the sake of reveling in the scent of their fear.

The problem was, Xander had a weird relationship with fear. 

And this definitely ranked in the top five sexiest times he had a knife held to his throat. That skimpy silk robe really wasn’t helping matters. 

Jack certainly didn’t take long to notice that Xander’s reaction was not the one he had been expecting. He tilted his head, looking at Xander curiously. Xander forced himself to meet Jack’s eyes, in spite of how much his gaze wanted to drift downward, in spite of the fact that he knew just how ill-advised it was to make direct eye-contact with vampires who were a couple-hundred-years-old. 

“You don’t have to worry about a thing,” Xander replied, choosing his words carefully. “You have a really nice place here, and I’d hate to ruin that for you. I’m pretty sure that your lair is way cooler than any of Dracula’s.” (So much for not thinking about that jerk.)

Jack’s demeanor relaxed with those words, and he slowly stepped back, the knife safely distanced from Xander’s throat. “Yes. It is. Thank you for noticing.” He sounded genuinely flattered. Xander let himself marginally relax, proud of himself for apparently saying the right thing.

“I was wondering what was taking so long,” came a gruff voice from the doorway. 

Xander turned to see Charles Vane standing there, incredibly naked. One would think that all of the years around Spike would have made Xander accustomed to vampires and their propensity towards casual nudity. Apparently not. This time, he really couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting downward. It didn’t help that Charles’ body had almost as many bite marks to stare at as Jack did, except they were primarily located on his inner thighs. He really should have tried harder not to stare, except his brain was doing the short circuit-y thing. 

“We were just having a little chat.” There was something in Jack’s demeanor that seemed to have almost softened, as though the mere presence of his sire was enough to make him forget any lingering displeasure at Xander’s expense. He was pretty sure that there had been a time that Dru had that kind of effect on Spike, though he’d never witnessed it firsthand. “Sorry to keep you waiting, _Captain_.”

Charles appeared almost amused. “A productive chat, I hope.”

“Yes, I think so,” Jack replied, returning his attention to Xander and looking at him in a considering manner. 

Xander felt as though he had suddenly been put on the spot, under the weight of both men’s gazes. It was remarkable that Charles managed to be even more intimidating when entirely nude.

“I think I have an idea, about how to pay you for that orb thing. Something to offer that you might be interested in.” Xander was once again proud of himself for how confident he managed to sound when he spoke.

Jack looked momentarily surprised, as though he had nearly forgotten about the business that had brought Xander and his companions to this island in the first place. Then that smirk of his returned. “Is that so?” He gave Xander a pat on the shoulder before stepping past him to make his way over to Charles’ side. “Very good, then, we can sort out the details this afternoon. I imagine you’ll be needing some more sleep.”

He was right, of course; Xander knew that he’d be miserable later if he didn’t try to get some more rest, even though sleep was currently the last thing on his mind. He nodded in response, but quickly realized that no one was paying him any attention. Charles had fully distracted Jack by slipping an arm around his waist, and soon they were kissing in a gratuitous enough manner that Xander was fairly certain that it was a display for his benefit--though what sort of vampire mind games they were up to, he couldn’t say. He found himself fixating on the way that Charles’ hand cradled Jack’s throat, his thumb rubbing in small circles over a bite mark in the same way as Spike had done with Xander on multiple occasions over the past several days. 

With little warning, they turned to leave, disappearing into the dark hallway and leaving Xander awkwardly standing alone in the room with Flint the parrot, who let out a loud squawk that started Xander out of his dazed state. His solitude didn’t last long, because a moment later he heard the familiar sound of Spike giving an appreciative whistle from somewhere down the hall--he must have just seen the very naked pirate captain for himself. 

“Did you see that?” Spike asked as he came to stand at the threshold of the room, in the shadows just at the edge of the rays of sunlight.

“Oh yeah. Got an eyeful,” Xander replied. “It’s safe to come in here, ya know. Necro-tempered glass.”

Spike looked impressed by that, tentatively stepping into the light before grinning and striding into the center of the room, allowing himself to bask in the sunlight. “Damn, I missed this.”

Xander smiled, watching the vampire fondly. He took a moment to memorize the sight of Spike like this, his unnatural pallor illuminated by the daylight. It was really unfair that he was so pretty.

“Like what you see, Harris?” 

“I think that being horny is helping distract me from the hangover.”

“That so?”

Xander didn’t bother to respond, since he was already getting down on his knees in front of Spike and reaching for the other man’s belt buckle. 

He did his best to ignore the parrot.


End file.
